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FOOD FRAUDS. 



SIMPLE METHODS OF DETECTING ADULTERA- 
TIONS IN WHAT WE CONSUME. 



''Adulteration is a wide-spread evil, which has invaded every branch of 
commerce; everything which can be mixed or adulterated or debased in any 
way is debased "—Dr. NORMANDY. 



COMPILED BY THOS. 0. THOMPSON, 



PRICE 25 CENTS. 



CHICAGO, ILL. 

Russell & Thompson, 182 & 184 Dearborn St. 

1882. 



FOOD FRAUDS. 



SIMPLE METHODS OF DETECTING- ADULTERA- 
TIONS IN WHAT -WE CONSUME. 



"Adulteration Is a wide-spread evil, which has invaded every branch of 
commerce ; everything which can be mixed or adulterated or debased in 
any way is debased."— Dr. Normandy. 



COMPILED BY THOS. O. THOMPSON. 



PRICE! 35 CENTS. 










CHICAGO, ILL. 
Russell & Thompson, 182 and 184 Dearborn St. 

1882 . 







Copyright 1882, 
By Russell & Thompson. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Our object in publishing this work is two-fold. First, to 
benefit mankind, and, second, to make money. Allowing 
five persons to each family, there are 10,000,000 families in 
the United States, according to the last census: and if the 
head of each buys a copy of this work, our object will most 
assuredly have been fully accomplished. 

It would be difficult to compute in how many of these 
domestic circles there are sufferings arising from the con- 
sumption of adulterated food, but if the number were known, 
the figures would be startling. Dyspepsia and other dis- 
orders of the stomach may be found in almost every family, 
and people are being gradually poisoned by adulterations of 
a very dangerous character. The worst feature of the case 
is that people have only a very slight idea of the extent to 
which their health is being impaired by food frauds. Bodily 
disorders are almost invariabty attributed to other than the 
right causes. If the truth were known, the derangements 
are due and traceable to the poisonous stuffs that are mixed 
with the food we eat and the liquids we consume. 

Pure articles are produced, but they are like two grains 
of wheat in a bushel of chaff — fgw and limited in comparison 
with the multitudinous trash thrown upon the market. 

This work is issued with a view of calling attention to 
these adulterations and placing within the knowledge of 
everybody simple, unscientific methods of determining 
whether tne articles used in every household are pure as 
represented by a seller. It is designed to arouse the atten- 
tion of the public to the enormity of the practice of adultera- 
tions, and enabling the learned, as well as the unlearned, to 
ascertain at any time when they are not only being swindled, 
but swallowing articles that are subtle and sure in their 
poisonous character. The question is not only merely of 
health, but also of commercial integrity. The purchaser 



INTRODUCTORY. 



should have what he calls for. If he pays for coffee, for 
instance, he should receive pure coffee for his money, and 
not an article in which some foreign substance is almost the 
leading ingredient. 

In the presentation of the facts and methods of ascertain- 
ing adulterations we claim no originality. Most of the 
work is simply a compilation of facts from the most authen- 
tic and reliable sources and its presentation in a condensed 
and convenient form. The tests given are easy and simple, 
and hereafter people need not be blindly mislead in their 
purchases. 

To know a swindle is to avoid it. 'To avoid a swindle is 
to annihilate it, and to annihilate a swindle in the form of 
food adulterations is to annihilate disease and premature 
death. 

THOMAS O. THOMPSON. 

Chicago, 111,, January, 1882. 



SUGAR. 

IT SWEETENS LIFE, BUT DOES NOT REMOVE ITS ASPERITIES. 

Sugar is an article found in every household. So ex- 
tensive is its use that it may be said to be one of prime 
necessity and wisely considered out of the category of lux- 
uries as tea and coffee. It is estimated by that distinguished 
economist, David A. Wells, that the present (1881) an- 
nual production of the world is 5,500,000 tons. Of this 
amount, the United States and Great Britain together con- 
sume one-third. The United States produce a large quantity, 
but still it is obliged to import every year large amounts, 
the extent of which may be judged from the statement that 
the value of our sugar importations in 1880 was $79,153,000. 
Great Britain produces no sugar, and in 1878 her importa- 
tions amounted to $101, 234, 000. Where so large quantities 
are consumed, the temptations for adulterations and ex- 
cessive profits are strong, and importers as well as dealers 
seem to vie with each other in foisting upon the market a 
spurious article. The competition in this line has been so 
strong that the producers and shippers in foreign climes 
have resorted to tricks in order to take advantage of the 
market, and imposed upon our government in running into 
this market sugars falsely colored to evade the high tariff 
rates. In the inspection of sugar, color is the legal test, and 
yet in Cuba and Demarara methods have been devised for so 
coloring the high grade sugars as to practically get them 
here under a very small duty. 

The adulterations that are most commonly known are 
with glucose, starch, sand, chalk or whiting, bone-dust, 
potato sugar, gum, dextrin, finely-powdered marble and 
common salt. These various articles are quite cheap, and 
used more or less extensively according to the greed of the 
seller. Weight is a great desideratum where fraud is 



6 SITUAR. 



practiced, and so the heaviest material is most generally 
used with the mixture. If large-grained sugars were pro- 
duced altogether, the perpetration of fraud would be exceed- 
ingly difficult. The detection could then be easily made by the 
consumer, but the small-grained sugars are mostly produced, 
and they mix easily with the glucose and other spurious sub- 
stances. "A large-grained sugar on the other hand is a most 
refractory material for these little manipulations; its crys- 
tals, no matter how mingled with contaminating agents, 
never ceasing to manifest their native brilliancy, and thus 
proclaiming the fraud. It is the most easy, then, to under- 
stand why the grocer, as a rule, does not encourage these 
large-grained sugars . He cannot 'handle' them, and there- 
fore brands them with fault. He says they are deficient in 
saccharine matter — that they will not sweeten. 11 

'Handling 1 consists not only in mixing with sugar the 
foreign bodies already named, but in mixing together in va- 
rious proportions, "sugar of different qualities and prices- 
as moist sugars with dry ones, very brown sugars with those 
of light color — the resulting article presenting a tolerable 
appearance to the eye, but being rarely what it professes to 
be — real Jamaica or Demerara sugar. 11 

Raw sugar should never be used. Its impurities consist 
of live animalculse, sporules of fungus, grit, woody fiber, 
etc., and hence the brown sugars of commerce are in a state 
wholly unfit for consumption — organic and inorganic filth 
abounding in them. In some samples, there have been 
found no less than 40,000 living insects per pound! 

The chemist of the city of Chicago, Dr. Paton, recently 
examined thirty samples of various brands of cane sugar 
and found in some of them starch sugar, which he declares 
decidedly objectionable owing to its purgative action, gum, 
dextrin, marble, sand, and traces of salt; but in a number of 
the specimens not such an amount of impurities as to render 
the use of the sugars very dangerous. He declares, how- 
ever, that he has "distinct objection against the use of 
brown sugars. 11 In one sample he found a trace of poison- 
ous copper, but its presence he attributed to the pan in 



SUGAR. 



which it was manufactured. As to brown sugar of the in- 
ferior sort all chemists agree. They would, banish them 
from the market These sugars contain substances that are 
not only disgusting to the feelings of those who know their 
ingredients, but very injurious to the health when consumed. 
Cheap grades of purified sugar are being yearly more ex- 
tensively introduced, and as soon as people are more gen- 
erally posted the lower sorts will largely pass out of the 
market. Sugar insects, which abound so largely in all these 
lower forms of saccharine matter, should be banished from 
the larder of every household that values health. 

Tests. — To determine the impurities in sugar is a simple 
one. Of course the component parts can only be detected 
by chemical processes. If foreign substances be present, 
dissolve the §ugar in water. All the substances named, 
except gum and salt, are insoluble; and hence, after allow- 
ing a sufficient length of time for the sugar to thoroughly 
dissolve, the foreign articles will subside to the bottom, and 
can be easily detected with the eye. If there are no sedi- 
ments, it can be taken for granted that there has been no 
special "handling" of the sugar. If it be desired to know 
if gum be present, proceed as follows: "Five grammes of 
the sugar must be dissolved in boiling spirits of wine. The 
greater part of the gum will remain undissolved and may be 
identified by its general character of stickiness. 11 



TEA. 

"THE CUP THAT CHEERS, BUT DOES NOT INEBRIATE." 

Tea has properly been classed among the luxuries. It is 
in no sense a necessity, except at ladies' gatherings, or as 
habit may have made its us© second nature, as a pleasant 
and harmless stimulant. Only the best qualities are to be 
found on the tables of the rich and prosperous. The hum- 
ble dwellings of the poor rarely contain it, unless it be the 
lower and almost valuless grades. 

It is an article foreign to our soil, and once ranked among 
the dutiable articles of commerce. The duty imposed prac- 
tically inhibited the use of it among the poorer classes. If 
they ever sipped of the tea infusion, they drank simply a de- 
coction of exhausted tea leaves or foreign leaves mixed with 
"lie-tea.' 1 

Some years ago, a cargo of tea was recovered from the 
ocean, after it had lain for a long period, and after being 
duly "doctored" bv experts it was placed upon the market in 
Chicago. Its value was almost nil, but it was sold at a low 
but still a very profitable figure, and taken almost entirely 
by poor people. One lot was sold to a contractor, and he in 
turn proceeded to sell it, to the county at the rate of $1.25 
per pound! 

Genuine, finely flavored tea is too expensive for general 
consumption. Even then, where the "best" quality is se- 
cured, there is no assurance that it is the best tea produced. 
A story is told at Washington that the Chinese minister, 
with his interpeter, called at the house of the Secretary of 
State, when the latter' s daughter offered him a cup of tea. The 
minister drank the tea and remarked very coolly: "It is of 
medium quality; I will send you some that is really fine." 
The next day she received, with his compliments, two pret- 
ty boxes of tea and a pair of vases of exquisitely carved 
white wood. The diplomat afterwa»d explained that only 



TEA. 9 

the Chinese grandees get the best quality of tea. Foreign- 
ers niay pay what they choose, but they cannot get anything 
above second grade. 

Of this fact no stronger proof need be given than that of 
the total value of tea importations in 1880, which amounted 
to $18,917,705, a very large portion was from the average 
crop. Hence the desire of dealers not only to produce a 
spurious article for the lower as well as the upper classes, 
but so produce the mixture as to realize handsome profits. 
Their wants, to a certain extent, are met by the ingenious de- 
vices of the Chinese and Japanese. They ship various kinds, 
as may be desired, but what they have failed to adulterate, 
the dealers here "doctor,' 1 to meet requirements in business. 
They know that only connosseurs can detect the fraud, and 
between tricksters in the Orient and sharpers in the Occident, 
the general consumer of tea falls an easy victim. The ex- 
periment of Le Due, in South Carolina, was in the direction 
of cheapening eventually the plant to the people, and sup- 
plying a pure article, but, after a large and reckless expense 
to the government, he succeeded in fully demonstrating that 
tea cannot be successfully raised in America. 

The teas known to commerce are black and green. The 
former is grown upon the "slopes of hills and ledges of moun- 
tains, while the latter is raised in manured soils. The dif- 
ferent varieties are produced by processes in the prepara- 
tion and roasting of the leaves and by methods of mixing 
pure leaves with foreign leaves. The principal kinds of 
pure black tea are Pekoe, which is the best quality, consisting 
of the unexpanded leaves and buds, Congou, Souchong, 
Caper and Bohea, the commonest description. The chief 
varieties of green tea are Twankay, Hyson, Young Hyson, 
Hyson Skin, Imperial and Gunpowder, which last corre- 
sponds in black tea with Flowery Pekoe. 

The adulterations of these teas are made with — 

Foreign leaves, as those of ash, plum, sloe, beech, box, 
elm, horse chestnut, plane, bastard plane, fancy oak, willow, 
poplar, hawthorn and sycamore. 

Lie-tea, which consists in part of dust of tea leaves in 



10 TEA. 

some cases, but more frequently foreign leaves, sand, quartz 
and magnetic oxide of iron, being made by means of a so- 
lution of starch into little sizes in imitation of different kinds 
of tea. 

Mineral substances, chiefly sand, quartz, turmeric, mag- 
netic oxide of iron, while china clay, soapstone, Prussian 
blue, chromate of lead, carbonate of copper, sulphate of 
iron to increase the astringency, and other mineral matter 
are employed in artificial coloration or painting of teas 
both black and green. 

A traveler through China says: "The Chinese in the 
neighborhood of Canton are able to prepare a tea which can 
be colored and made up to imitate various qualities of green 
tea;" and this and similar practices prevail not only in 
China but also in this country. Green tea is extensively 
manufactured from damaged black leaves. Twankay tea is 
often mixed with false leaves, which are colored with indigo, 
and calcined foliated gypsum. Instances are known where 
persons have bsen employed to secure exhausted leaves of 
the genuine at hotels, restaurants, boarding houses and other 
places, and these leaves so obtained have been thoroughly 
rinsed with a solution of gum and re-dried. After drying the 
leaves were mixed— if for black tea, with rose pink and 
black lead to face them. Of eighteen samples secured from 
tea dealers in Chicago, the city chemist found that ash pre- 
dominated in all, and there was noticeable the presence of 
foreign, exhausted or re-dried tea leaves and mineral mat- 
ters used for coloring. 

Tests. — Chemical analysis only can best determine the 
kinds of substances used in the adulterations. A simple 
test, however, which will easily disclose the purity of the 
tea, according to Dr. Hassall, of England, is to boil the tea 
for some time, and then closely examine the leaves. If 
foreign leaves be present, they easily separate and show by 
their general nature their difference from the genuine. A 
comparison with a true leaf will always reveal the foreign 
one. If the leaves are exhausted ones, one can determine it 
with the eye, by the fact that the fold or roll of leaves is less 



TEA. 11 

regular and uniform than that of the unused tea, and many 
flat pieces of leaves occur, the surfaces being often aggluti- 
nated together. 

Lie-tea will reveal itself by pouring upon the masses a lit- 
tle boiling water, when, if they consist of leaves, they will 
quickly unfold and expand, whereas, if of lie-tea, they will 
break down and become disintegrated, leaving a dirty resi- 
due in which minute particles of the tea-leaf are visible. If 
it be mixed with quartz or sand and magnetic oxide of iron, 
place one of the little masses between the teeth and it will 
feel gritty, and if the finger be pressed upon them when ren- 
dered soft by the action of hot water, the sand or other min- 
eral matter will be at once felt. If iron be present, spread 
the powder on paper and a magnet drawn across it will 
bring the particles to the edge of the paper; or plunge the 
magnet into the powdered tea and it will bring up the min- 
eral particles. 

To determine if the tea has been faced, a portion of it may 
be washed with cold water, the washings being set aside for 
a time, when the substances removed from the surface of the 
leaves will gradually subside to the bottom of the glass. 

If Prussian blue has been used for coloring, it may be 
recognized under the microscope by the angular form of the 
fragments, their brilliant and transparent blue color. If 
turmeric has been used, it will be noticed under the micro- 
scope, as of characteristic yellow cells, of a rounded form, 
which are filled with starch granules of a peculiar shape. If 
black lead is present, the jet black, glossy and metallic lus- 
tre imparted to the tea coated with it will serve in most 
cases for identification. To determine precisely, remove a 
thin slice from the surface of one of the leaves and place it 
under the microscope; if there is black lead, the sample will 
appear thickly studded with numerous black particles. 



COFFEE. 

THE POWDERED PRODUCT PERVERTED. 

A cup of coffee is an almost indispensable adjunct at every 
breakfast table. As Lord Beaconsfield lias said: "A cup of 
good coffee is the rarest and most delicious beverage in the 
world." At whatever sacrifice of other luxuries, the hum- 
blest and poorest person demands his coffee to round off and 
give tone to his simple repast. Since it enters so gener- 
ally and extensively into tne requirements of a family, there 
is every reason why it should be of at least a good quality, 
but the very fact of its being in general demand has lead to 
very extensive and wholesale adulterations. The importa- 
tions during 1880 were valued at $56,777,625, and once in 
the hands of some of our unscrupulous dealers, a large por- 
tion of the coffee has been subjected to legerdemain, which 
other substances so nearly allied in taste has rendered easy. 
Where the seeds or berries are purchased by the consumer 
and closely examined, the chances for fraud are nearly out 
of question, except where an inferior grade is mixed with a 
still lower grade. Arabian or Mocha coffee are distinguished 
by their yellow color and comparative smallness and round- 
ness. Martinique are larger than Arabian seeds, rounded on 
the ends, of greenish color, and retain the thin skin, which 
comes off by roasting. The seeds of San Domingo coffee 
have their two extremities pointed. Those of Java or East 
Indian coffee are larger and of a paler yellow, while those of 
Ceylon, West Indian and Brazilian coffee possess a blue- 
ish or greenish grey tint. 

Of course the mixing together of the lower and higher 
grades produces an inferior article, but it is in the ground 
or powdered product where adulteration is most practiced. 
The most common practice of adulteration is with cheap 
chicory. In most cases it forms the largest proportion of 
the mixture, and is easily disguised with coffee. Its flavor 



COFFEE. 1.3 

is imperceptible and the fraud readily passes for the genu- 
ine. Some dealers, with an air of innocence, grind the cof- 
fee in the presence of purchasers, but such a procedure is no 
guarantee that the product is genuine, as they manage to ad- 
roitly slip into it such quantities of chicory as they deem ex- 
pedient. Some have chicory apartments in their coffee mills, 
and while the genuine berry is ostensibly being reduced to a 
powder the chicory is also being ground with it. Even 
though there are no secret apartments and the berries them- 
selves are examined, the purchaser is liable to be deceived, 
as it has been stated that a patent has been taken out to 
mould chicory into the form of coffee berries. 

Sometimes rye, roasted peas, wheat, corn and beans and 
roasted carrots, parsnips and mangold wurzel are ground 
and mixed with coffee. Occasionally acorns, sawdust, oak 
bark tan, Croats and baked liver are used. In order to 
give color and taste to the adulterations, burnt sugar, lamp- 
black and Venetian red are employed. 

Tests. — It is an easy matter to ascertain whether the sus- 
pected article is adulterated. If the ground coffee, says Dr. 
Hassall, cakes in the paper in which it is folded, or when 
pressed between the fingers, there is good reason to believe 
that it is adulterated, most likely with chicory. If a 
few pinches of the suspected coffee are placed upon some 
water in a wine glass, the coffee floats on the surface and 
the other substances gradually fall to the bottom to a greater 
or less extent. The coffee does not rapidly imbibe the wa- 
ter, while the other particles being more porous absorb it. 
If the cold water, to which a portion of ground coffee has 
been added quickly, becomes deeply colored, it is an evi- 
dence of the presence of some roasted vegetable substance 
or burnt sugar, for when coffee is only added to water, it 
becomes scarcely colored for some time. Not only does the 
solution become dark colored, but if a boiling water solution 
be made, it will be thick and mucilaginous if it be adulterat- 
ed with any substance containing much gum and starch, but 
the infusion of coffee will be found thin and limpid. Chicory 
has more than three times the coloring power of highly- 



14 COFFEE. 



roasted coffee; maize double that of coffee, while peas and 
beans have only half the coloring power. 

Again, spread a few grains on a piece of glass with a few 
drops of water, and if you can pick out with a needle small 
soft pieces, the coffee is adulterated. When by any of these 
processes the results follow as stated, there is no. doubt of 
adulterations. The character of the adulterations can only 
be determined by the microscope. 



HONEY . 

THE SWEETEST OF ALL SWEETS. 

The production and accumulation of honey is a slow pro- 
cess, but the encouragement given to it in the market in the 
past has lead to the establishment of apiaries on all well- 
regulated farms and elsewhere. The supply has always 
been about equal to the demand. In view of such a state of 
affairs, and the further fact that it leads all sweets, it would 
be supposed that no attempts at adulteration would be made, 
and that the cunning devices of men would be baffled. Not 
so. Shrewd chemists and speculators have been equal to the 
emergency. They have overcome all difficulties, and placed 
upon the market a spurious article that defies detection with 
the general purchaser. In fact it has been stated that even 
the comb has been so well made by means of delicate ma- 
chinery that when it is filled with the manuf actued honey, it 
has all the appearance of the genuine, and that manufactories 
are now in existence for the artificial manufacture of the en- 
tire product. As to the truth of this, some doubts exist in 
the minds of honey producers, but as to the honey part, it is 
a well known fact that its manufacture has grown into very 
large proportions. Glucose is the leading ingredient; in 
some cases almost the sole ingredient. Prof. A. J. Cook, of 
the Michigan Agricultural College, says: "It is said that all 
our sugars, with the exception of the granulated, are largely 
composed of this artificial glucose. Reputable authority as- 
serts the same to be true of nearly all our table syrups; and 
much of the so-called honey on the markets is largely com- 
posed of this same grape sugar. Yet no sign of these wicked 
frauds is to be seen on the labels. If not pronounced pure, 
the purchaser is left to infer that such is the case. This state 
of things is a disgrace to our civilization, and should be de- 
nounced as base and corrupting by every honest man. 
Laws, State and National, should be enacted and enforced, 
so that all who practice these adulterations and thus sell 



16 HONEY 



articles under a false trade mark, should receive condign 
punishment." 

This adulteration is not for the purpose of bettering the 
condition of honey, but simply with a view of bringing the 
dealers large profits. It is claimed that glucose is mixed 
with honey, because it contains the same chemical proper- 
ties as honey, and insures its durability, but experts hold 
that such is not the case, for the reason that, if glucose has 
any merits of its own, it would stand alone and compete 
with other sweets, and not be used solely for adulterating 
purposes. How largely glucose has come to be used as an 
adulterating article may be judged from the statement that 
the industry has grown from 1Q0 bushels of corn daily to the 
present use of 6,000 bushels per day. The annual produc- 
tion in 1881 was 600,000,000 pounds, and the amount of 
money invested in the business is said to be about $20,- 
000,000. 

A building for its manufacture has now been nearly com- 
pleted in this city, which stands the highest in point of stor- 
ies, and almost the lagest in Chicago. When in operation it 
will daily turn out thousands of pounds. A great deal of the 
glucose produced in the United States has been sold to deal- 
ers in honey, as well as in sugars and syrups, and the rest 
has found its way to breweries and distilleries, to be used as 
substitutes for more expensive articles, and to candy mak- 
ers, fruit preservers, druggists and patent medicine dealers. 

Tests. — Prof. Cook gives the following as a test of the 
adulteration of honey: "It is a well known fact that most 
kinds of honey will granulate or crystalize whenever the 
temperature is reduced below freezing, or even a higher de- 
gree than 32 deg. Fahrenheit. A few kinds of honey, like that 
from the famous white sage of California, will not granulate, 
but this is so exceptional that the candying test, as so often 
urged by M, Dadant, is a pretty sure one, and is by far the 
most practical one that has been suggested. Honey, that as 
winter approaches, becomes solid, may be considered as 
pure. If it remains fluid it may well be regarded as suspici- 
ous. It is stated that the Thurbers first used glucose to pre- 



HONEY. 17 

serve the fluid condition of the honey, as granulated honey- 
was objected to by their customers. Of course they were not 
slow to appreciate the further gain of selling glucose at 
double its market value. Mr. Dadant, then, is right in urg- 
ing people to purchase only granulated honey, unless they 
purchase comb. Extracted honey, if granulated, may be re- 
liquified by setting the vessel containing it into hot water, 
that is not more than 180 deg. Fahrenheit for an hour or 
more. Caution is required that the vessel containing the 
noney shall be entirely surrounded by water, so that the 
honey shall not be overheated at the bottom of the vessel. 
In this way candied honey can be reliquified with no loss of 
flavor or quality. If after reducing it, it is kept in a warm 
place, it will not solidify again. 

As already stated, the adulteration is done by the dealers. 
Once started, as suggested above, the excessive gains to the 
wholesale dealer secured its continuance until the sharp de- 
tectives over the sea brought the iniquitous practice to light. 
Yet the evil is by no means abated by the dealers. Hence 
another way to detect the pure from the spurious. If honey 
i3 offered for sale in a neat glass jar, with the trade mark of 
a New York or Chicago dealer, it may well be tested, especi- 
ally if it shows no tendency to granulate upon exposure to 
the cold. On the other hand, if in tin pails or common fruit 
cans or jelly cups, with the name of the producer on the ves- 
sel, it may be regarded safely as honey. This will readily 
granulate, and very likely will be solid when purchased. 
This should be considered as a recommendation and not as 
an objection." 



MILK. 

THE NECTAR OF THE GODS. 

The sale of milk has grown into an immense industry. In 
the case of people living within a radius of forty or sixty 
miles of Chicago, or of any large city, the shipments they 
make realize them a considerable portion of the income upon 
which they depend for their support. Chicago consumes 
millions of gallons of milk annually, and the supply comes 
mainly from the country. Within the city there is a consider- 
able production of milk, but as the cows are fed in filthy 
barns, in a majority of cases, upon distillery swills, only the 
poorer classes buy it. 

The best quality and largest quantity, however, comes 
from verdant pastures, and the ease with which it can be 
adulterated is too strong a temptation not only to the grang- 
ers themselves but also to the city vendors. The close rela- 
tion between milk and the "town pump" has frequently 
evoked criticism, and sometimes to such a degree has the 
lacteal fluid been diluted that it has been a question whether 
water or milk preponderated. But it is not the only adul- 
teration to which milk is liable. Where a large quantity of 
water has been used it is often necessary to have recourse to 
other adulterating ingredients, as for instance, sugar to 
sweeten it, salt to bring out the flavor and annatto to 
color it. 

Milk is also sometimes adulterated with chalk, starch, 
cerebral matter, such as calves' brains, etc., whipped into it, 
gum, dextrin and a decoction of boiled white carrots. 

Tests. — On the detection of water, two methods may be 
employed: As milk is much heavier than water, the specific 
gravity of the mixed or impure article is consequently much 
less than that of the genuine article. Place, therefore, the 
pure and the watered or mixed article side by side, and then 
float a cork with a thick wire or a darning needle through 



MILK. 19 

its center, in each sample. In the pure liquid the cork will 
not sink as deep as in the adulterated article. 

Again, dip a darning or knitting needle or some polished 
rounded steel into the suspected article, and if it be pure, 
the milk will adhere evenly on all sides on being withdrawn. 
The microscope will reveal the kinds of substances used, as 
pure milk is homogeneous and contains myriads of beauti- 
fully formed globules of fatty matter of various size, reflect- 
ing the light strongly and readily soluble in caustic potash. 
The globules are coated with an envelope formed of some 
albuminous substance, and any particles foreign to milk can 
be easily distinguished from them. "Swill milk" can be 
discovered by the pale blue color it presents on standing for 
some time. 



BUTTER. 

"WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS, 'TIS FOLLY TO BE WISE." 

In no article of commerce is fraud practiced in so unblush- 
ing a manner as in the sale of butter. Adulteration of butter 
has been practiced from time immemorial, but it is only 
within recent years that factories have been established for 
the exclusive purpose of manufacturing the spurious article. 
These factories have been established in the vicinity of the 
Stock Yards of Chicago, where the adulterating material re- 
quired can be the more readily and conveniently obtained, 
and in the very heart of the city, where commission dealers 
are accessible. It would be thought that with these factories 
the market would be fully supplied, but so great is the greed 
for gain, that establishments are found in full blast in Wis- 
consin, Iowa and Indiana. These country manufacturers 
take the creamery of their neighborhoods, and, to adulterate 
it, have agents in the city to send them the necessary material. 
Chicago and its surrounding country, however, are not alone 
in the nefarious business. Manufactories abound all over 
the country. In New York City and State alone, 20,000,000 
pounds of the spurious article are annually manufactured. 
The entire pure butter product of the State has reached in a 
single year, 111,018,413 pounds, and, when it is taken into 
account that the manufactories have a capacity for turning 
out 116,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine a year, it can be 
readily seen that the dairy business is placed in jeopardy 
It is also computed that there are from 5,000,000 to 8,000,000 
people throughout the country interested in the dairy busi- 
ness, who have a capital invested in it from $4,000,000 to 
$6,000,000, and, as nearly every State in the union is en- 
gaged in the manufacture, the loss to these people in conse- 
quence of the competition with the spurious is enormous. 

The money value of the annual dairy product is estimated 
by good authorities to exceed that of the wheat crop, or corn 



BUTTER. 21 



crop, and is greater than that of the cotton and wool com- 
bined and is between $400,000,000 and $600,000,000. Besides 
proving detrimental to home production, the adulterations 
injure our foreign trade. In illustration of this fact, Con- 
gressman Parker has shown by statements procured from 
the bureau of statistics and census bureau, that during the 
six years ending June 30, 1881, the value of oleomargarine 
exported rose from .$70,483 in 1876 to $381,556 in 1881. In 
1878 the quantity exported was only 1,698,401 pounds, but 
in the year ending June 30, 1881, it was 26,327,676 pounds. 
In the year ending December 31, 1881, the quantity of butter 
exported was only 21,331,358 pounds, while in the preceding 
year it was more than 37,000,000 pounds. The value of the 
butter exported was $3,250,000 less in 1881 than in 1880. 
On the other hand, the statistics show that the amount and 
value of cheese exported were greater in 1881 than in 1880. 
The inference is, of course, that the amount of butter ex- 
ported has greatly decreased because of the remarkable 
growth of the oleomargarine industry and the rapidly in- 
creasing amount of oleomargarine exported. The census 
bureau furnished a statement showing that in the cities of 
New York, Philadelpnia, Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, Balti- 
more, Cincinnati, and Louisville there were twelve factories, 
employing nearly seven hundred hands, paying $187,648 in 
wages, and using $4,740,941 worth of material. The capital 
of these factories was $1,600,000, and the value of the annual 
product $6,035,753. Four-fifths of the material product of 
these cities are credited to New York City. Mr. Parker 
asserts that at home every consumer is liable to become the 
daily victim of those who are adulterating the people's food 
by an imitation so artfully made as to defy detection by any 
except experts, and that our market abroad for the genuine 
product is greatly harmed by the belief that we are palming 
off on consumers as a dairy product a base imitation. 

The imitation butter only costs the Eastern manufacturers 
nine cents a pound, while it readily sells at from twenty-five 
to forty cents. 

Apt was the cartoon in an Eastern illustrated publication, 



22 BUTTER. 



where it represented a maid churning in a country farm- 
house, with the words underneath, "The Dairy of the Past," 
and a factory with a foreman, surrounded with boxes labeled 
fats, greese, lard and the refuse of packing establishments, 
mixing them together for butter, with the words underneath, 
"The Dairy of the Present.' 1 

Where so many foreign substances are used, it would seem 
to be an easy matter to detect the adulteration, but the 
coloring as well as taste are so well looked after that the 
fraud readily passes as butter. Lard, specially prepared, is 
most commonly used with pure butter, and the extent to 
which it enters into the composition may be judged when it 
is stated that in a recent trial of a dealer in Chicago, it was 
shown by a chemist that the sample purchased contained 70 
per cent, of lard. In the trade the mixtures are known as 
oleomargarine, in which beef suet is the leading ingredient, 
used entirely uncooked; butterine, pure butter and lard; and 
suine, the leaf lard of the hog, which is macerated and used 
in its raw state, but in the market it all passes for butter. 
Their profits may be judged when it is stated that lard only 
costs in Chicago from 2\ to 17 cents per pound, while butter 
sells at from 18 to 50 cents per pound. In some cases, the 
mixtures are harmless, but in a majority of instances, the 
stuff' is absolutely injurious from the very nature of the vile, 
rejected articles that constitute its ingredients. In all cases 
as much water as possible is incorporated in order to give 
weight. By bringing the butter to a melting point, water to 
the amount of 50 per cent, and salt from 2 to 14 per cent, 
are stirred into the mixture until it becomes cold. Butter is 
also adulterated with starch, usually potato flour, and with 
curd, the fat of beef, mutton, veal, etc., no matter whether 
from diseased or putrid carcasses, as is most frequently the 
case. 

Inasmuch as color often determines the price, some cream- 
eries, where even pure butter is supposed to be prepared for 
the market, use a compound to give the article a rich, yellow 
appearance. Butter, from milk from cows off' grass-feed, 
has a white appearance, and because of the suspicion attach- 



BUTTER. 23 



ing to it in that condition, color compounds are mixed with 
it. It is claimed by those who use them that they are pre- 
pared from vegetable substances and hence harmless, but 
others, who pretend to a knowledge of the matter and are 
opposed to the system of deception, hold that they are of an 
injurious nature and should not be used. 

Tests. — To determine adulteration, a sample should be 
taken from the center of the lump, melted and placed in a 
bottle. The bottle should then be placed for a half an hour 
or so near the fire. The water and salt will become separated 
from the butter and sink on account of their greater weight. 
As to whether there are any trustworthy chemical tests for 
foreign fats in butter, authorities differ. Generally the 
presence of lard can be detected by the whiter appearance of 
the mixture over pure butter, or its unnatural, peculiar color- 
ing, and its sticky, peculiar character. An expert can deter- 
mine it at once by its color and taste, good creamery having 
a fresher and more palatable taste. As the fusing or melt- 
ing point of butter is less than that of animal fats in the 
ratio of about 33 to 45, the presence of fats can be very 
closely determined by placing the suspected article upon a 
hot griddle and noting the manner and rapidity with which 
the parts dissolve. 

Furthermore, under the microscope, pure butter reveals 
elongated globules of fatty matter in clusters, while the 
spurious presents a mixed conglomerate, and greasy looking 
mass. 



CHEESE. 

A POOR ARTICLE IN THE MARKET. 

The manufacture of cheese has grown enormously within 
the past few years. The superiority of American cheese has 
created a large foreign demand, and the exportations are 
yearly increasing on account of it. United States Commis- 
sioner Loring estimates that during the year 1881, this 
country shipped abroad between 120,000,000 to 140,000,000 
pounds of cheese. To take advantage of this increased de- 
mand, manufacturers have resorted to extensive adultera- 
tions, and lest the reputation already achieved and the trade 
already acquired be destroyed, the dairy interests of the 
country, in local as well as national organizations, have 
entered their protests. They verv laudably desire the home, 
as well as the foreign market protected from the spurious 
article. 

So good has been the reputation of American cheese abroad 
that unscrupulous dealers have taken further advantage 
of it, as witness the following from a recent issue of 
The Chicago Tribune — " The Drovers 1 Journal says: 'The 
quotations on American cheese and butter received from the 
Liverpool market are of no value to any one in the trade. 
They are utterly worthless except to convey and perpetuate 
a false impression. These articles are mostly in the hands 
of one house, and the market is as skillfully manipulated as 
any fancy stock in Wall Street, and by an expert who shows 
a smartness that would cause Jim Fisk to turn in his grave 
with envy. Nearly all the poor English cheese the firm 
handle they label American, and nearly all the prime Ameri- 
can stock they sell is labeled prime English. Thousands of 
boxes of choice Illinois and Wisconsin made goods are sold 
annually by this firm as choice English; and the house has 
practiced this deception since the trade began, or since 
American goods made the just reputation they enjoy.' 



CHEESE. 25 



"There is no doubt that the foreign dealer sometimes re- 
sorts to ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, but 
people here have set them many awful examples. The 
adulteration of cotton with sand, cheese and butter with lard, 
lard with tallow, etc., have been carried out on such a scale 
by unprincipled parties on this side of the Atlantic as to de- 
stroy the confidence of many in even those articles which are 
pure, and materially lessen the demand in not a few cases. 
Vast quantities of vile stuff have been sent over to Europe, 
and it is no wonder if the cheaters there avil themselves of 
the fact to their own temporary benefit. Only two days ago 
it was stated here by an exporter that he could not obtain 
orders for lard, though offering to lay it down in Liverpool 
at considerably less than quotations. The natural inference 
is that the parties corresponded with were suspicious of 
quality, though in that case there was no reasonable ground 
for fear.' 1 

The adulterations, to which resort is had, are those with 
lard and other animal fats, the leaves of sage, parsly and 
other herbs, which are so infused into the cheese as to give 
it a green color. Other matters, such as annatto, mangold 
flowers, saffron, and the juice of red carrots are likewise 
used for coloring. To give weight, pocatoes boiled and re- 
duced to a pulp, and bean meal are employed. The outer 
surface is sometimes washed over either with Venetian red, 
and reddle or sulphate of copper and arsenic, in order to 
protect the cheese from the attacks of the cheese mite and 
other parasites. This practice is very dangerous, as many 
persons frequently eat the rind, and, besides, is not always 
a sure safeguard against parasites. The presence of para- 
sites can be ascertained by cutting into the cheese. If dry 
and powdery parts be found, it can be set down that such 
parts consist almost entirely of cheese mites and their ova in 
different stages of development. 

Tests. — The differences in the composition of cheese, such 
as being made from cream, whole milk, or skim-milk, or 
made into a hard cheese or soft, like cream cheese, render it 
quite difficult to determine the question of purity. The 



26 CHEESE. 



presence of annatto, however, is indicated by its orange 
color. The use of potato and other starchy substances, as 
bean meal, etc., can be determined by adding to a minute 
portion of the cheese a drop or so of a solution of iodine. 
The cells of the potato are characterized by their large size 
and rounded form, and bean meal reveals similar character- 
istics. If copper has been used, burn the rind and then treat 
the ash with nitric acid, after which the solution may be 
rendered alkaline by ammonia, when a characteristic blue 
color will appear. The detection of arsenic can only be 
made by a very difficult chemical process. If fats have been 
used, heat the cheese in a pan of water, when the fat will 
separate and may be easily poured off. Venetian red can 
only be detected by a long chemical analysis. Pure cheese 
is never colored. 



CONFECTIONERY. 

CONFECTIONS SHARPEN AFFECTIONS. 

Art and ingenuity have been taxed to produce something 
novel, attractive and palatable in confectionery. With pure 
and wholesome substances only limited varieties of candies 
can be manufactured, and hence we find that the dealers re- 
sort to the use of articles, which are absolutely poisonous in 
their character, in order to place before the public greater 
sorts of confections. The adulteration of sugar confection- 
ery is enormous ; and many of the ills of young people, as 
well as of older ones, who have a "sweet tooth,' 1 grow 
directly out of their consumption. 

The chiei varieties of articles used in adulterations are 
glucose, starch, lemon chrome, chalk, different kinds of clay, 
plaster of Paris, lampblack, chromate of lead, cochineal, red 
lead, red oxide of lead, vermilion, cinnabar, bisulphuret of 
mercury, brown ferruginous earths, Antwerp blue, indigo, 
ferrocyanide of iron, German ultramarine, Brunswick green, 
carbonate of copper, Emerald green, arsenite of copper, 
white lead, hydrated sulphate of lime, mixed with different 
kinds of flour and arrowroot. The leading adulterant is 
with glucose. Equal parts of sugar and glucose are used on 
the ground that certain kinds of candy, if made out of noth 
ing but cane-sugar, grow hard and grow old in a very short 
Glucose when mixed with cane-sugar, keeps them 
soft and fresh. It is also claimed that it brightens up the 
candy. 

This use of glucose now threatens a long litigation. The 
manufacturing confectioners have become alarmed by a 
claim of the National Confectionery Company of Boston for 
indemnity for past infringement upon what is called the 
Chase patent, granted in 1870, covering the use of grape- 
sugar in the manufacture of boiled sugar goods, and the 
payment of a royalty of \ cent a pound on all glucose bought 



28 CONFECTIONERY. 



from the Buffalo, Peoria and Glen Cove refineries, and \ cent 
a pound on all other grape-sugar purchases. The Chase 
patent is believed by the manufacturers to have been sud- 
denly called into action by parties controlling the Buffalo 
and . American grape-sugar companies in Buffalo and the 
Peoria, 111., refinery, and Duryea, of the Glen Cove works, 
Long Island, to control the glucose trade of the union as 
against all other manufacturers, and particularly to head off 
the Chicago concern now approaching completion. No 
doubt is said to exist as to the validity of the patent and the 
power of the present owners to enforce a claim for past in- 
fringement, and a future royalty from every confectioner in 
the union who has been using glucose, and the impression is 
that a ring has been formed to squeeze the confectioners to 
buy exclusively of the companies nominally under arrange- 
ments with the National Confectionery Company, and also 
to extort royalty rights worth $3, 000, 000 a year. The Buffalo 
confectioners are joining their colleagues elsewhere and pro- 
pose to raise $1,000,000, if necessary, to fight the patent. A 
wholesale confectioner has stated that on trial he will be 
able to prove the use of glucose in American candies anterior 
to 1867, Such proof it is claimed will invalidate the patent. 

In some samples of candies the colors are so numerous, 
that in a single parcel there may be together four or five 
poisons. Nearly all the colors given are deadly poisons and 
instances have been known where sickness and death have 
resulted from a large use of candies colored with them. The 
essences used to flavor the candies are also of a dangerous 
nature, such as pine-apple, jargonell pear or bitter almond. 
The worst are prussic acid and fusel oil. Some candies that 
have a fruity taste are flavored with rotten cheese, which has 
been previously treated with sulphuric acid and bichromate 
of potash. 

Some candies are also impregnated with intoxicating 
liquors. Recently in New Haven, Conn., it is stated that a 
young lady of fine family became intoxicated by eating 
candy compounded with rock and rye. In consequence of 
this discovery, the confectioner was notified by the city at- 



CONFECTIONERY. 29 



torney, that if he continued the manufacture of the article, 
which was apparently solid, he must take out a liquor license. 
A society for the prevention of crime also interested itself in 
the matter and adopted measures to stop the selling of such 
candies. 

Tests. — The color is an indication of aduteration, but to 
determine whether it is vegetable, animal or mineral matter, 
all that is necessary is to dissolve the candy in water and 
whatever is precipitated to the bottom may be put down as 
either mineral or insoluble starch, or some insoluble sub- 
stance, as chalk, white potter's clay, pipe clay or Cornish 
clay, etc. If plaster of Paris has been used, it becomes 
solid when moistened with water. Chalk will effervesce on 
the addition of an acid If some kind of starch has been 
used, dissolve a small part of the candy upon a slip of glass 
and if there is a residue, it can be put down as starch. If 
any other insoluble substance besides starch has been %sed, 
the starch can be converted into glucose with sulphuric acid. 

The presence of insoluble or mineral substances is of 
course very objectionable. 



BEER. 

THE AMBER LIQUID PRESENTS A GOOD APPEARANCE. 

When Gambrinus invented this beverage, it consisted of 
the products of malt, hops and water. The brewing of beer, 
however, in these modern days, has been revolutionized, 
and we find such adulterations used as those with glucose, 
water, sugar, treacle, liquorice, burnt sugar, vegetable 
bitters, including picric acid, coculus indicus and strychnia; 
carminatives and opium, variolas minerals, as alum, salt, 
sulphate of iron, carbonate of lime, soda and other articles. 
Sweet flag root, quassia, coriander seeds, capsicum, caraway- 
seeds, grains of paradise, ginger, beans and peas, to save 
malt? and oyster shells are also employed. To give beer an 
appearance of strength, sulphate of iron alum, and salt are 
used ; to correct acidity, chalk and the alkalies, and to give 
hardness characteristic of age, sulphuric acid and cream of 
tartar, or bitartrate of potash. 

" Beans,' ' says a writer, "tend to mellow malt liquor, and 
from their properties add much to its inebriating qualities, 
but they must not be used in too large a quantity. Oyster 
shells are very good to recover sour beer. Alum is generally 
put into the vat, as it gives the beer a smack of age. Coculus 
indicus is used as a substitute for malt and hops, and is a 
great preservative of malt liquor. It prevents second fer- 
mentation in bottled beer and consequently the bursting of 
the bottles in warm climates. Its effects are of an inebriating 
nature.' ' Half alum and half copperas, as well as gas, are 
used to give beer a head of froth. 

Each brewer has a process of his own for combining the 
articles enumerated, and, to such an extent has adulteration 
been resorted to, that some of the beer sold to dealers is 
positively injurious. Many, who are fond of beer, are loth 
to drink it because of its effects, in some instances, pro- 
ducing billiousness and headaches, and in other cases, acting 



BEER. 31 

as a purgative and deranging the system. Hence the pre- 
ference shown for imported beer, where it can be obtained, 
such as Erlanger, Culmbacher, etc. This beer produces no 
evil effects and must therefore be pure, or, if adulterated, 
composed of harmless ingredients. Some brands of home 
brewing are most excellent, but they are rare and not easily 
obtainable except at restaurants, which have built up a 
reputation and desire to keep it. 

In New York recently, a committee of gentlemen proposed 
to visit several breweries of that city, and witness the process 
of manufacture with a view of either confirming or denying 
the reports in circulation, as to the poisonous character of 
the substances used in turning out the "amber nectar. 11 
The brewers declined on some special plea, and then a 
thorough chemical analysis, by some chemists, of various 
samples showed that the real reason for not permitting the 
visit was the desire to conceal the extent to which they 
adulterated their beer. 

A leading brewer of Chicago admitted to the writer of this 
work the use of injurious substances, but claimed, in extenu- 
ation of his questionable practice, the fact that others did 
the same, and, to protect himself, and to be able to produce 
and sell as cheaply as others, he was forced into it much 
against his own will and personal inclinations. He had to 
do it or run his business at a pecuniary loss. The loss, how- 
ever, is entirely on the side of the buyers and consumers. 
The adulterations are wholly for the purpose of realizing 
greater gains. 

When it is taken into account that the value of malt liquors 
consumed in the United States amounted to $444,806,373 in 
1881, according to the report of the bureau of statistics, it 
requires no stretch of the imagination to picture the immense 
profits resulting from the use of the foreign substances named; 
since the price of beer to buyers and consumers is the same 
as it has been for years, and the adulterating articles used 
are of the cheapest description. No stronger proof of the 
enormous practice of adulterations can be given than the 
almost stationary character of the cultivation of hops. In 



32 BEER. 



1860, the value of malt liquors produced was only $7,994,707; 
in 1870, the value of the product had increased to $55,706,643 
and in 1881, the value rose to over $444,000,000 as above; 
while the acreage of the hop crop in 1874 was 37,004, and at 
the present time is in the vicinity of 70,000. If hops were in 
as great a demand as years ago and no substitutes used in 
beer, it ought to follow that the acreage ought to increase in 
almost like proportion with the increase in the brewing 
of beer, especially since our exportations of hops has in- 
creased from 9,587,329 pounds in 1877, to 18,458,782 in 1878, 
and to nearly 26,000,000 in 1879. On the contrary, the 
"malt" product has grown amazingly and the acreage very 
slight, the former increasing since 1870 eight-fold, while the 
latter grew scarcely two-fold. 

Tests. — Boil the beer with some unbleached wool for about 
ten minutes. Remove the wool and wash it. If the beer is 
pure, the wool will remain white, but if it contain picric 
acid the wool will be dyed of a yellow color. If sulphuric 
acid be present, dip a pen into it and then if the written 
words turn black on being dried before the fire, the acid has 
been used. As to the use of burnt sugar, genuine beer, when 
shaken with a solution of tannin, becomes decolorized, while 
that colored with the sugar still retains a greater part of its 
color. If cream of tartar has been used, add to some beer, 
alcohol until it is not entirely dissolved on shaking, and then, 
after it has been allowed to stand for twenty-four hours, the 
orystalline residue at the bottom reveals it. The presence of 
coculus indicus and other substances can only be ascertained 
by a chemical process. 



LARD. 

WHITE AND SPOTLESS IN COLOK. 

If one could witness the manufacture of lard in some of 
the rendering establishments in the cities, there would be 
surprise and consternation. The apparently pure and white 
article so nicely shown in the market, would be found to be 
largely made of the worst animal refuse instead of from the 
fat only which surrounds the tissues. All substances that in 
any way yield fat are melted at a certain temperature, the 
fluid extracted running into good sized kegs. The worst 
feature of the manufacture is that the refuse frequently 
comes from hogs that have died from disease. Alum and 
quicklime are used to give it its white appearance, and 
potato flour, starch, mutton suet, tallow and carbonate of 
potash employed to give weight. A gentleman purchased 
what he considered a superior quality of lard; indeed he had 
never seen an article that looked better. He prepared with 
it an ointment, and on mixing in some chemicals, he dis- 
covered that the lard turned very shortly into a full slate 
color. On examination, the lard was found to contain a 
large portion of lime. The lard renderer subsequently stated 
to the party that it was a common practice among lard deal- 
ers to mix from 2 to 5 per cent, of milk of lime with the 
melted lard. A sopanaceous compound is formed; which is 
not only pearly white, but will allow a stirring in during 
coloring of 25 per cent, of water. 

If this lard were used only in America the damage would 
not be so great, but a good deal of it is shipped abroad, the 
result is that it works great injury to this country in foreign 
lands. Recently Cuba, which consumes a large quantity, 
sent back its protest, and gave warning that unless stopped, 
purchases would be made elsewhere, as it did not want our 
adulterated grades. Of course the effect of shipping this mixed 
stuff has already been to diminish the foreign demand, as 



34 LARD. 



witness the newspaper extract in the chapter on "Cheese, 1 ' 
and the following: In 1878, the total exports of lard amounted 
to 342,667,920 pounds, while in 1879 they fell off 20,955,615 
pounds, although the production had greatly increased and 
prices ruled comparatively low. 

Tests. — To determine the lard adulteration, mix with the 
article some nitrate of mercury, when if it turns black it is 
impure. Or, if on melting, it fuse without effervescence, or 
without the occurrence of a deposit, it may be safe to set it 
down as pure, but if ebulition takes place, or a sediment is 
thrown down, the lard is unquestionably adulterated. 

If starch be present, mix a drop of a tincture of iodine 
with a few grains of the lard upon a slip of glass, when the 
composition will become either deep blue or almost black. 



VINEGAR. 

ITS PUNGENCY ARTIFICIALLY INCREASED. 

Some of the compounds sold under the name of vinegar 
are only such in taste. The different kinds may be designated 
as malt, wine, cider, beet, sugar and wood vinegars, but a 
large portion of the stuff offered in the market is prepared 
from less expensive material, and sustains no relation to the 
active principle from which it should derive its strength and 
purity. The chief articles used in adulterations are water, 
sulphuric acid, burnt sugar, acetic and pyroligneous acids, 
and acrid substances, as chillies and grains of paradise. The 
water is added to increase its bulk, sulphuric acid and acrid 
substances co make it pungent and burnt sugar to restore 
the color lost by dilution. A good deal of the vinegar found 
at restaurants is simply nothing more than diluted sulphuric 
acid and water colored with burnt sugar. Occasionally 
vinegar is found to contain nitric, hydrochloric and tartaric 
acids, alum, salt, spurge flax, mustard, pellitory and long 
pepper. 

Some factories will not resort to adulterations. They find 
it pays better to turn out the pure article and they generally 
command their own prices from consumers, who will have 
only the best at any cost. If it were an easy matter to de- 
tect the impurities in all the vinegars offered for sale, people 
would not allow themselves to be imposed upon, but insist 
upon the pure article. 

Tests. — To determine all the ingredients is simpiy im- 
possible except by a chemical analysis. The presence of 
sulphuric acid, however, which is a highly injurious sub- 
stance, may be discovered by dipping a pen in the vinegar 
and writing with it on paper. If the written words turn 
black, when dried before the fire, the vinegar is charged with 
the acid. Or a still more reliable test, add a few drops of 
the suspected vinegar to a small fragment of cane-sugar and 



36 VINEGAR. 



evaporate on the water-bath, heated sand, when the residue 
will turn more or less black. If mineral acids be present, 
the color of a paper which has been colored with methylani- 
line violet, will be destroyed by the mineral in the vinegar, 
but not by organic acids. If chillies and other acrid sub- 
stances have been used, evaporate a little of the vinegar on 
the water-bath and then their presence will be revealed on 
tasting by the pungent taste. 



WHISKEY 

CHEMISTRY WORKS GREAT CHANGES IN THE ARTICLE. 

Alcohol is the principal constituent of whiskey. Starch, 
woody fibre, corn, etc., furnish that base, and, were it not 
for the desirability of imparting speedy age in the product, 
a good pure article could be secured in the market. But the 
. rivalry and competition between manufacturers has lead to 
adulterations and the invention of processes, by which to 
give the article the flavor of age and please the palate of the 
consumers. Sulphate of copper, sulphuric acid, fusel oil, 
etc., are some of the delectable (?) ingredients, and a com- 
pound is formed, the consumption of which not only steals 
men's brains, but undermines their constitution and health. 
Of course the manufacturers throw the blame upon the inno- 
cent consumers and assert that if they did not like its taste 
and consumed it, there would be no occasion for the manu- 
facture of the spurious article. Their argument runs about 
as follows : "The fact is, people have become so much 
accustomed to the taste of compounded liquors that they 
don't recognize pure liquors when they get it. If they do, 
they don't like it. Since the process of making 'fine old 
whiskey' in two days was discovered, a complete revolution 
in the business has taken place. I know the whole business 
from beginning to end, and right here let me give you a bit 
of advice. If you want to drink spirituous liquors, let me 
tell you the manner in which most of the whiskey now sold 
is made. The rectifiers add to a barrel of high wines five 
gallons of the oil of rye. Other essences are put into it to 
give color and flavor. It is run through the still, purified, 
placed in barrels and sold. It tastes just as well to the 
average drinker after two weeks' time as whiskey five }-ears 
old. The distiller who makes a pure whiskey can't sell it. 
The consumer doesn't like the taste of pure liquor, because 
he has not become accustomed to it, and prefers the flavored 



38 WHISKEY. 



rectified high wines. The average grade of whiskey costs 
from 16 cents to 18 cents per gallon to manufacture. The 
tax is 90 cents per gallon. Say its original cost is $1.10. 
Now, if a pure liquor is made to become old whiskey it must 
stand at least five years. The barrel must be open and five 
or six gallons are lost by evaporation, Consider the loss of 
interest on the investment for the time the whiskey is stand- 
ing idle, rents, etc., and you will see that it cannot be sold 
at a fair profit for less than $4 per gallon. A vast majority, 
however, of all the 'old' whiskey sold does not bring more 
than $3 per gallon. The truth is that it is chemically treated 
and has no real age. The manufacturer is not to blame for 
compounding liquors. The consumer had rather have it 
than pay for the genuine article." 

This, however, does not take into consideration the fact 
that were only the pure kinds of whiskies turned out by the 
manufacturers, only the pure liquid could and would be con- 
sumed. Burnt sugar is also used to give whiskey color and 
age. 

Tests. — For the detection of fusel oil, a simple practice is 
to rub some of the spirit between the hands, and after allow- 
ing the alcohol to escape, the peculiar odor will be at once 
perceived. There is no known common method of ascer- 
taining the age of whiskey. 



WINES. 

DREGS TURNED IXTO WINES. 

Pure wines are, as a rule, rare. This is somewhat singu- 
lar in view of the increased natural production of the article 
in the United States. The time was not many years since 
when nearly all the wines were imported from Germany. 
France, Spain and Hungary, because consumers not only 
wanted a liquid of good body, strength and boquet, but were 
possessed of a fanciful idea that the home product was well 
nigh worthless in comparison with it, but since California, 
as well as other sections of our country, has fully demon- 
strated a capacity for its production in large quantities of a 
better character than that from abroad, affectation for the 
foreign article has greatly diminished and consumption of 
the home product increased. The establishment of large 
wineries, under the charge of professional experts, has large- 
ly brought up the reputation of California wines from the 
reproach placed upon them by the hasty marketing of the 
first goods. By reason of this reproach in the past, a great 
deal of the native product has been sold under foreign labels, 
and some is so still placed upon the market. But the wines 
of America are now more in favor and in greater demand. 
The last report of the United States bureau of statistics 
proves this fact very conclusively. It shows that our total 
consumption of wines in 1881 was 28,231,106 gallons, of 
which amount the United States only imported 5,231,106 
gallons. 

How much of this was pure it is difficult to determine. 
No statistics are published in this country to indicate the 
manufacture of wine from other articles than grapes. . In 
France, however, official reports for 1881 show that no less 
than 47,000,000 gallons of wine were made from sugar, and 
51,000,000 made from raisins, while the imports of Spanish 
and Italian wines for "blending;"' amounted to 154,000,000 



40 WINES. 



gallons. These together are equal to one-third of the actual 
yield of the French vineyards and strikingly illustrate the 
enormous adulterations of French wines. If so great is the 
adulteration in France, the land of vineyards, it is safe to say 
that only a small percentage of the American wines has been 
left unmolested by the dealers. The adulterations are made 
with different articles, and made so skillfully as to discount 
like efforts of other countries, which largely accounts for the 
popularity of American wines. Sometimes different kinds 
of grape wines are mixed, and, in other cases, the manu- 
facture is wholly artificial. 

The Boston Journal of Chemistry has stated that thousands 
of gallons of claret are made by allowing water to soak 
through shavings and adding thereto a certain portion of 
logwood and tartaric acid, and a little alcohol. It further 
stated that good judges could hardly tell the difference be- 
tween this mixture and the genuine article. Sherries are 
often made from cheap white wine, strengthened with brandy, 
colored with treacle and flavored with almonds. A kind of 
sherry is also manufactured from pale malt and sugar candy, 
a small quantity of brandy and inferior wine being added to 
flavor it. Sometimes lead is used to restore muddy wines. 
White wines are also increased in color by the addition of 
caramel or burnt sugar, and red wines by acetic acid. For 
flavoring purposes, extract of sweet briar, elderflowers, 
arris root, cherry and laurel water are used. Port wine is 
made frequently from cider, brandy, elder and damson wines 
and a decoction of sloes and powdered catechu, and aged 
with a strong decoction of Brazilwood with alum. The 
brilliancy of port wine is sometimes increased by means of 
alum, and, if turbid, it is cleared by gypsum, while astrin- 
gency is imparted by oak sawdust. Madeira wines are 
adulterated similar to those of sherry and other white wines, 
Bordeaux and Burgundy wines are strengthened frequently 
by the addition of brandy. Wines are also adulterated with 
cane-sugar, the juice of rhubarb, gooseberries, apples and 
pears, and colored with elderberry, black sherry, bilberry, 
logwood, and Brazilwood, carbonate of soda and potash, 



WINES. 41 



lead, beetroot, aniline dyes, cochineal and sulphuric acid. 

Champagne sold in this country is largely spurious. Some- 
times it it made of cheap white wine, sugar and coloring 
matter being added, and then again partly or wholly from 
gooseberry, apple, pear or rhubarb. In some manufactories, 
white sugar, whitest brown sugar, crystalline acid or tartaric 
acid, pure water, white grape wine and brandy in various 
proportions are used to produce a champagne that sells 
readily for the genuine. Cider is also employed in the manu- 
facture of a cheap grade of wine. Many American cham- 
pagnes sold under foreign labels, are simply made from poor 
grapes and berries. While only a few weeks old, this liquid 
is bottled green, and pretended age is given by charging it 
with carbonic acid gas and other slight off-hand preparations, 
the peculiar effect of which, in connection with this "wine," 
is to create a rank poison in the human system. Let any 
doubter make a business of drinking it, and he will soon be 
convinced. Wine to be good should be made from ripe 
grapes, after being carefully picked and freed from immature 
and damaged berries, and then when fermented in bottles, it 
is as good as the best made in Europe. Sometimes where a 
red wine is to be produced, quality is sacrificed for color and 
unripe fruit is used. "The raw wine," says a writer, "is 
cleared by the use of aluminum, gelatine, and alum, the 
latter imparting to it great brilliancy, and it is treated with 
a flavoring syrup which is charged like soda water with car- 
bonic acid, by filling the bottle under a fountain. In this 
process the wine is liable to be impregnated with lead and 
copper, which have the effect of disorganizing alike the wine 
and consumers' stomach. Nausea and headache are among 
the ill results of drinking 'sparkling wine' thus prepared, 
or any of the adulterated still wines which are 'doctored' to 
suit the taste ' ' 

Rhine wine is adulterated with 'sugar, water and spirits. 
The mixture is fermented with grape husks and then labeled 
wine. 

Tests. — The wool dyed yellow by means of chromate of 
potash. Such wool, boiled for some time with genuine wine 



42 WINES. 



assumes a characteristic light brown color, no matter in 
what country the wine is grown; while if the wine be arti- 
ficially colored with aniline dyes, the wool is dyed red. Wine 
colored with cochineal does not change the tint of the wool, 
but extract of Brazil wood gives rise to a dark wine red, and 
extract of Campeachy wood to a brown or brown black color. 
A mixture of Campeachy and Brazil wood extract, dyes the 
wool from iron-grey to black. Wine colored with beetroot 
can be made colorless by lime water. 

All Colifornia grown wines are recognizable to experts by 
a peculiar flavor, difficult to define, which has been called 
"earthy, 1 ' putting one in mind of some of the wines of Bur- 
gundy. To most people, however, this peculiarity is not 
apparent and is not as intense as the "foxy" aroma of wines 
made from the American grape varieties. Another peculi- 
arity of California wines is that they contain considerable 
alcohol as the result of the intense sunshine under which the 
grapes ripen. 

If elderberries have been used to color wine, a solution of 
caustic potash added to it, will produce a purple color; if 
logwood, a reddish purple; if Brazil wood, a red color; if 
beetroot, red; and if red mulberries, a purplish color. 

The detection of foreign spirit in genuine wine, is exceed- 
ingly difficult, even by chemical processes unless the spirit 
added is very impure. Other substances in wine can only 
be detected by difficult chemical processes. 



BRANDY. 

AN ARTICLE THAT TASTES LIKE THE GENUINE. 

Brandy to be good should be distilled from white and pale 
red wines. Very little, however, of the article sold in the 
market is so manufactured. A product that tastes exactly 
like brandy is very ingeniously turned out and only experts 
can tell the difference. Of the $70,607,081 worth of the 
article consumed in the United States in 1881, the largest 
part is said to have been spurious. 

Various processes are used. Some convert corn spirit into 
imitation brandy by using alcohol, argol, wine-stone, or 
cream of tartar, acetic ether, French wine vinegar, bruised 
French plums, flower stuff from cognac, in various propor- 
tions, and coloring with burnt sugar to the required tint and 
roughing it to the taste with a few drops of the tincture of 
catechu, or Kino; while others use some puncheons of brandy, 
raisin spirit, tincture of grains of paradise, cherry laurel 
water and spirit of almond cake, to which they add some 
quantity of oak sawdust and give color with burnt sugar. 
Even the French brandy imported into this country, is, either 
in part or wholly, made from corn, or from molasses, potato 
or beetroot spirit. British brandy is also spurious, as it is 
frequently made by the distillation of murk, the name given 
to the refuse skins and pips of grapes left after the distillation 
of wine. Since chemistry can produce essential oils arti- 
ficially — "oils which have the odor of that particular ether 
to which brandy owes its flavor," foreign countries, alike 
with America, produce mostly a spurious article. Oak saw- 
dust and tincture of grape stones, purposely prepared, are 
used to give new brandy the taste of an old spirit. Cayenne 
pepper is used to give pungency. 

Tests. — The detection of fusel oil may be made by resort- 
ing to the process described under the head of "whiskey." 
If pepper be present, it is recognizable by the irritating 



44 BRANDY. 



character of the vapor given off when the substance contain- 
ing it is burnt. The rectification of spirits not derived from 
the grape is so perfect, that their presence is not easily de- 
tected in brandy. However by evaporating a portion of the 
spirit, the presence of a foreign substance may be detected 
by the peculiar penetrating taste. 



GLUCOSE. 

USED SOLELY FOR ADULTERATING PURPOSES. 

Glucose is the cheapest of all sweets. It is manufactured 
from corn and stands without any special merits of its own. 
Its sole use is as an adulterant of other sweets and as such 
derives its commercial value. Its manufacture costs com. 
paratively little, and. when mixed with other forms of 
saccharine matter, a resulting article is produced that passes 
for the genuine. It sells to the trade for 4J to 4J cents per 
pound, and the articles it adulterates are sold at a figure far 
beyond the bounds of commercial honesty. In the case of 
sugar, except possibly granulated, it is mixed with it to the 
amount of over one-half and the mixture sells from 9 to 11 
cents per pound. A swindle of the most aggravated character! 
If the price of sugar was reduced proportionate to the use of 
glucose, the imposition upon the purchaser would not be so 
great, but the quotations have only fallen some 2 or 3 cents 
since the growth of glucose manufactories within the last 
twelve years. Sugar was quoted at 10 to 14 cents per pound 
in 1870, while at the present time, the market ranges from 
7| to 11 cents — the decline being due largely to the increased 
production of sugar at home as well as abroad. 

In confectionery the swindle amounts almost to robbery. 
The price of candy has remained about the same for years 
and yet glucose is used with it to an enormous extent. 
Fully 200 per cent, is profit derived chiefly from its use, and 
when it is taken into account that the sales of the confectioners 
of Chicago alone reach annually over a million dollars, it 
can readily be seen that the business is a most profitable one. 
In syrup, honey and maple sugar, it also enters very largely 
as an adulterant and brings the dealers handsome returns. 

At the present time, there are manufactories in operation 
in Buffalo, N. Y. ; Glen Cove, N. Y. ; St. Louis, Mo. ; Detroit, 
Mich.: Des Moines, Iowa City and Davenport. Iowa: Tippe- 



46 GLUCOSE. 



canoe, Peoria, Freeport and Geneva, 111., and an immense 
establishment, with a capacity of 15,000 bushels of corn per 
day, is about completed in Chicago. With a view of con- 
trolling the market, they all belong to a general association, 
which fixes prices and limits production. Besides regulating 
the trade, they speculate on their own hook with syrup 
"doctored" by themselves and sell at a figure the same as 
that for the pure article. To sell at less figures would be an 
admission of adulteration and purchasers would be placed 
on their guard. Quotations are therefore kept up both for 
the sake of gain and to deceive the people. 

Of course in this game of general grab, they are not slow 
to make all the money possible out of their business and 
resort to adulterations of the very article, which has its 
existence simply as an adulterant of other articles. The 
dealer in swindling his customers is thus himself unconsciously 
being swindled. When he buys the glucose he supposes it to 
be real glucose, but if he possessed the knowledge of thorough 
analysis, he would find that the manufacturers mix with it, 
by a certain process, the lowest form of other saccharine 
matter in order to enhance its sweetness. There is thus a 
Pelion on Ossa of fraud, and the consumer of sweets is at the 
mercy of both the greedy -manufacturers and the dealers. 

Whether glucose is injurious to the system, doctors are 
divided in opinion. Some maintain that it is highly detri- 
mental to health, while others insist that it is perfectly 
harmless. 

Tests. — As glucose is a sugar less soluble and sweeter than 
cane-sugar, the suspected article may be placed in a goblet 
of water and after stirring for some time, what fails to be- 
come speedily assimilated with the water may be set down 
as glucose from its crystalline appearance. 



TOBACCO. 

COLORED STAMPED PAPER USED FOR COVERS. 

Tobacco is used more extensively than any other stimulant 
or narcotic. It has been estimated by Dr. Geo. M. Beard, of 
the New York University, that it is used by 900,000,000 of the 
human race and that over four billion pounds are raised 
annually throughout the world, which is nearly four pounds 
a year for every man, woman and child upon the face of the 
globe. 

Whether in the form of smoking or chewing tobacco or 
snuff, it is of course outrageously adulterated. The leaf, 
when rolled up for chewing purposes, is treated with molasses 
and some gritty substances to give taste and weight, and 
where a cheap article is desired, the leaf, stock and refuse 
that accumulates from month to month in the factories are 
put together and a fine wrapper placed around each plug. 
When it is considered that the refuse has been trod upon by 
dirty boots or shoes and saturated with the saliva of the 
workingmen, it can readily be imagined what an excellent 
chewing compound has been formed. 

Cigars are made from inferior leaves, highly flavored and 
the narcotic properties heightened by chemical processes, 
and, in some instances, cherry leaves, specially prepared, 
are mixed with the better qualities of the weed. Some brands 
have wrappers made out of paper manufactured and colored 
in imitation of the leaf. 

Before the perfection of the art of deception, it was an 
easy matter to determine a good cigar by the light brown 
specks on it. These were made by worms, and as they would 
only touch the best tobacco, smokers would select such 
cigars as were thus marked. Chemists, who are now a part 
of every well established manufactory, found a way of imita- 
ting these spots, and that circumvented the test. The ashes 
were also a good indication. If white, the cigar was good; 



48 TOBACCO. 



if not, then it was bad. The chemists again came to the 
rescue and made so-called "cabbage leaves" — the reputed 
use of which with tobacco is a pure fiction — burn as white as 
the best kind of tobacco. Ammonia is largely used for this 
purpose, although sometimes the same end is attained by 
soaking the tabacco in a strong solution of saltpetre. The 
latter practice is said to be very injurious to consumers. In 
order to give cigars an intoxicating quality, some manu- 
facturers dip the fillings into a solution of sulphuric ether 
and bromide of potassium, which is pronounced to be highly 
injurious. The peculiar effects of some cigars are said to be 
unquestionably due to their being filled up with so-called 
nervines, narcotics and stimulants. Some flavor their cigars 
with a combination of vanilla, valerian and New England 
rum. Other substances are also used for flavoring, such as 
opium, the tonka bean, balsam of fir, cedar oil and ascarilla 
bark. 

Snuff is adulterated with pepper and other substances that 
give it weight, pungency and color. 

Tests. — There is no reliable test except one's experience 
in the use of tobacco. A close inspection of plug tobacco 
will reveal its impurities, and smokers of cigars can deter- 
mine between a natural and artificial flavor. A fine cigar 
can hardly be said to improve by manipulations beyond the 
necessary curing and should burn evenly and well for some 
time, without the presence of any hard or crumbling particles. 
The wrapper should have a smooth, clear surface, and the 
ends present a filling of leaves of fine fiber, loosely rolled 
together and not compactly pressed as if solid. Poor leaves 
crumble and are easily pressed together, and when burned, 
burn somewhat like a rolled mass of rags. 



SODA WATER, GINGER BEER AND MINERAL WATER. 

GAS MAKES THEM ALL BUBBLE ALIKE. 

Nearly all the soda water, ginger beer and mineral water 
sold are not by any means what their names imply. The 
mineral water, in which the greatest efficacy has been 
found, is that which has been imported, and the demand 
for it has been so great that chemists have found processes 
for manufacturing water that tastes exactly like it. Foreign 
as well as home dealers have turned out the spurious article, 
and so great has been the competition that a government 
tax on the imported article came to the assistance of the 
home manufacturers. Genuine mineral waters, although ex- 
empt from duty, suffered alike with the rest, but recently 
the government decided upon admitting it free to our ports, 
where it could be conclusively shown that it was natural min- 
eral water impregnated with its own gas. Some of the so- 
called mineral water is simply made with powdered effer- 
vescent salts, which are put up and sold by druggists in 
bottles containing two and four ounces each. In charging a 
fountain, six ounces of the powder is used for every ten gal- 
lons of water, and where a draught is prepared extempor- 
aneously, half a teaspoonful of the powder is placed in a 
goblet previous to filling with water. 

Soda water, in order to be such, should contain alkali, 
but the kind sold in the market is simply water impregnated 
with carbonic acid gas, not a particle of soda being used. 
In like manner ginger beer should be made of ginger, sugar 
and water subjected to fermentation. 

Tests. — The presence of the right ingredients can only be 
determined by chemistry. On standing, however, exposed 
to the air for some time the liquids lose their strength and 
become insipid, whereas the genuine keep their strength and 
body for a considerable time. 



BREAD. 

THE STAFF OF LIFE IS THE STAFF OF THE BAKER 1 S PROFITS. 

One would suppose that the bakers would be above any 
tricks of adulterations. But it appears not. The moment 
he commences his dough until he puts his loaf up for sale, 
he smuggles into it articles calculated to increase the weight 
and deceive the public. Water is cheap, and hence his de- 
sire that his bread should contain as much of it as possible. 
He accordingly soaks it with all the water it will hold and 
then rushes it into a hot oven with as little delay as possible. 
This produces a crust instantaneously and prevents the 
escape of water. He next covers his bread with cloths and 
thereby keeps it moist until it is sold. If he is especially 
avaricious he adds some rice, and this, when cooked, swells 
up greatly and absorbs a great deal of water. Potatoes are 
added for a similar purpose. He also uses alum to give his 
bread a white appearance. Sulphate of copper is sometimes 
used for the same purpose. 

Alum hardens the nutritious qualities of the bread and 
renders digestion difficult. Besides, sometimes it is used to 
"doctor up" damaged flour. Bread made at home is darker 
than baker's, for the reason that no injurious alum is used. 
The whiter the bread, the greater the adulteration either 
with alum, or sulphate of alumina and potash. 

Tests. — What has already been stated as to color is an in- 
dication of adulteration. When soaked in water, home- 
made bread in which pure yeast has been used, does not 
present as spongy an appearance as the adulterated bread. 
Or immerse a slice of bread in a docoction of logwood, when 
the presence of alum will be indicated by the appearance of 
a blue coloration. 



BAKING POWDERS. 

"A LITTLE LEAVENETH THE WHOLE LUMP." 

The market is filled with patent baking powders. Country 
fairs are overrun with their exhibition and city stores are- 
filled with placards advertising their merits. In some places, 
bread and biscuits, freshly made, are parceled out to custo- 
mers to show what light, white, airy and palatable products 
can be raised from them. Most of these powders are made 
of alum and bicarbonate of soda with some starch or flour. 
The city chemist of Chicago pronounces them very objection- 
able and maintains that alum, whatever condition it may 
be converted into in the bread-baking, becomes in the 
stomach, altered into aluminic chloride, a styptic, or astrin- 
gent much more powerful than alum itself. Powders are 
also made with carbonate of soda and tartaric acid, which are 
objectionable since the resulting tartarate of soda possesses 
aperient properties. Most baking powders so-called are 
made of about three parts of starch, one part bicarbonate of 
soda and one part alum. The presence of alum is noticeable 
in nearly all samples, and its use for this purpose has been 
invariably condemned by the medical profession. 

Tests. — There is no reliable or easy test except by chemi 
cal analysis. 



CREAM OF TARTAR. 

AN ARTICLE USED EXTENSIVELY IN COOKING. 

The house committee on commerce, in its investigations 
into certain few adulterations recently, submitted to congress 
a report, from which we take the following in reference to 
the subject under consideration : 

"Commercial cream of tartar contains tartarate of lime, 
which must, within limits, be accepted as natural to it. 
Cases have recently been tried in England in which the 
adulteration charged was the lime tartarate present in this 
salt, but the magistrate properly refused to convict. Yet 
this is an article which is subject to gross adulteration. 
Among eighteen samples examined by the experts, six were 
found to be of satisfactory purity, eleven of them contained 
lime varying from 17 to 90 per cent., three of them having 
nearly the latter figure. Two contained no cream of tartar 
at all, but consisted, the one of sulphate of lime, alum, and 
acid phosphate of lime, and the other of alum, acid phosphate, 
and potato-starch. Corn-starch was also found in large 
proportion in one of the lime sulphate powders. Consider- 
ing the use of cream of tartar in cooking, its impure con- 
dition is a serious evil. As we all know, this article enters 
into the manufacture of bread of the world, and certainly 
such adulterations should be, if possible, stopped. Of nine 
samples examined in New York one had 80 per cent, of terra- 
alba, one 61 per cent., and the others contained lime-salt. 11 

Tests. — For terra alba, dissolve in a solution of caustic 
potash, which leaves the impurity undissolved. For lime in 
any form, dissolve in aqua ammonia and add a little solution 
of oxalate of ammonia, which will precipitate chalk or lime 
in any form. For starch or flour, test the solution with 
iodine, which will give a blue color. 



CIDER.. 

ACID SUBSTITUTED FOR THE PURE JUICE. 

In a country abounding with orchards and cider presses, 
it would seem that there ought to be no occasion for a 
spurious article, and yet we find it in the very center of a 
cider producing section. In fact, cider has been so skillfully 
adulterated that it is difficult to tell the false from the genuine. 
Sometimes the pure juice is mixed with water and then brought 
up to the right flavor with either acetic or carbonic acid. In 
most cases, however, water is sweetened with sugar, impreg- 
nated with tartaric acid and colored with burnt sugar. This 
is the kind mainly sold in large cities. As bottled cider is 
liable to become impure, sulphate of soda and other chemicals 
are mixed with it to keep it sweet. The difficulty of getting 
pure, hard cider is very unfortunate, as it is regarded by 
physicians a most valuable beverage for the nervous and 
dyspeptic. Dr. Beard calls it "the Rhine wine of America 1 ' 
and adds that it would be "better, far better for our Ameri- 
can ladies if they took more hard cider and less tea and 
coffee. It clears the digestion, corrects the liver and sharpens 
the appetite." 

Tests. — By exposing the mixture for some moments to the 
air, the gas escapes and a flat, insipid tasting fluid remains, 
having little of the body and pungency of pure cider. 



CHICCORY. 

THE ROOT OF CONSIDERABLE EVIL. 

This plant is very extensively cultivated throughout the 
country. Its value lies in the use of its roots, which form, 
when duly prepared, a leading admixture to coffee, as already 
shown. The roots grow deep into the ground and are taken 
up just before the plant blossoms in August or September. 
They are then washed, kiln-dryed and roasted, after which a 
very small quantity of lard is added to improve the appear- 
ance of the powder. This powder strikingly resembles 
ground coffee and cannot be easily detected from it by the 
naked eye. Hence the great temptation to mix it with coffee 
and produce an article, on which large profits can be realized, 
especially since the plant is raised with scarcely any trouble 
and is prepared at a very trilling expense. Once it grew in 
a natural state without any merits being discovered in it, but 
now its cultivation has assumed large proportions to meet 
the demand and greed of unscrupulous merchants. So well 
has it been prepared for the market that it not only supplies 
the home demand, but large quantities have been shipped to 
Europe, where it has achieved a reputation as being superior 
to the native product. 

Not satisfied with its cheapness as an adulterant, the dealers 
in coffee mix with the chiccory different kinds of roasted corn, 
as wheat and rye, beans, acorns, carrots, beet-root, burnt 
sugar and red earths, and thus greatly enhance the pecuniary 
value of packages labeled "pure coffee" and swell their own 
ill-gotten bank accounts. Sometimes the seeds of wild senna 
are mixed with it,, and, as their odor closely resembles 
roasted coffee, the resulting article is made still more 
deceptive. 

Tests. — The microscope will reveal the different articles 
used by the difference in their cellular structures. In a mixed 
article, the chiccory will be made manifest by the particles 
swelling up on the addition of water, and the other ingre- 
dients will show scarcely any change. 



FLOUR. 

THE FLOUR OP THE MILLS NOT THE FLOUR OF COMMERCE. 

The adulteration of flour is not carried on to as great an 
extent as with other articles of commerce. The millers, as 
a general rule, run it into barrels as it comes from the grind- 
stone and ship it to the market. When it reaches the 
centers of trade and has remained stored for awhile, under 
unfavorable conditions, it is liable to be damaged and then 
the sellers usually mix with it alum and carbonate of soda 
to stop decomposition and correct the acidity arising there- 
from, thus making it a more salable article. Of course, in 
some instances, unscrupulous persons add chalk, mineral 
white, rice, beans, corn and potato flour to give the article 
bulk and weight and so enable them to realize greater profits. 

Tests. — The only way to detect the adulteration of flour 
with other kinds of flour is by the use of the microscope. 



CHOCOLATE. 

THE FLAVOR CONCEALS THE FRAUD. 

Chocolate, which is the prepared state of Cocoa for use, 
has been designated as a food fit for the gods. The distinc- 
tion is appropriate for its infusion graces, for the most part, 
the tables of the rich and well-to-do people. It is produced 
in Mexico, the West Indies, Central America and on the 
French Island of Bourbon. Altough it is a great luxury in 
its pure state, taste is sacrificed to the greed of dealers, and 
so it is found frequently adulterated with various flours, 
chicory root, colored ferruginous earths, corn, sago meal, 
tapioca, arrowroot, potato starch, sugar, cocoa-nut oil, lard 
and tallow. Even the finest chocolate is made up with clari- 
fied mutton-suet and common sugar with cocoa. For color, 
carbonate of lime, hydrated sulphate of lime, red ochre, 
Venetian red, umber and clay are used. 

Tests. — To detect adulterations proceed as follows: "If 
in breaking chocolate, it is gravelly; if it melt in the mouth 
without leaving a cool, refreshing taste; if on addition of 
hot water, it becomes thick and pasty, and, lastly, if it form 
a gelatinous mass on cooking, it is adulterated with starch 
and such like substances. 

Where earthy and other solid substances are deposited 
from chocolate mixed with water, either the cocoa beans 
have not been well cleansed, inferior sugar has been em- 
ployed, or mineral subtances have been added to it, eithei 
for the purpose of coloring or of increasing its weight. 
Moreover, when chocolate has a kind of cheesy taste, animal 
lat has been added ; and when very rancid, either vegetable 
oil or even the seeds themselves have been employed.'" 



PICKLES. 

WHEN GREEN, "GREEN 11 IS THE ONE THAT EATS THEM. 

The pickling industry has received a great impetus within 
the past few years. The supply has generally come from 
abroad, but since improved methods have been discovered 
for preserving fruits and vegetables, farmers have found it 
quite profitable to cultivate their growth. Pickling factories 
now abound all over the country, and were it not for the 
substances used to give color, there would be no danger in 
eating pickles. Whenever articles are pickled in the right 
manner, they are usually of a yellow color rather than green. 
The articles, however, when presented in the market, pre- 
sent a vivid bluish green color, more intense than that of the 
fresh vegetables. When therefore they are of decided green, 
they nearly always contain copper, but when they are of a 
yellowish or brownish green, copper is never present. The 
manufacturers, however, desire their wares to present a fresh 
color so as to please the eye of the consumers and prove 
more salable. Whenever therefore they prepare the vege- 
tables, they boil them either with copper at the bottom of the 
pot, or allow them to stand in a copper pan for twenty-four 
hours. 

Tests. — The presence of copper in pickles, bottled fruits 
nd vegetables i s thus clearly indicated by their color. 



MEAT- 
HOW TO DETERMINE A GOOD ARTICLE. 

Poor is the family that cannot afford a plate of meat once 
a clay at least. In Europe, the article is a rare luxury with 
the poorer classes, and only graces their tables on festal 
occasions, but in America, where it can be had in abundance 
and at a small cost, it forms the leading dish at two, if not 
the three, meals of a day throughout the year, 

If it were not that unscrupulous dealers palmed off on the 
unsuspecting people unsound and unwholesome meat, very 
little fault could be found with the trade. Very often dealers 
find it to their profit to sell meat not acceptable to a first-class 
market. They purchase it at a low figure, and by treatment 
present it in such a condition as to make it readily pass with 
a certain class of consumers as a first-class article. 

Where so many thousand heads of cattle, hogs and sheep 
are daily received and slaughtered in a large city like Chicago, 
it follows that a good many are diseased. Among the num- 
ber many also die in transit, and, as their sale to rendering 
establishments would bring very little, they are clandestinly 
sold to sharp speculators at a saving price on original cost 
Again the meat of an old one is sometimes sold as that of a 
young animal. It is said that it is not easy to determine the 
age of an animal when living and siili more difficult to do so 
when dead. The age is generally ascertained by the teeth and 
horns, but as butchers and owners of meat markets do not 
exhibit meat "on the hoof," the consumer has only general 
means of posting himself as to its real character. As to veal, 
he is entirely at the mercy of the dealers. He trusts to their 
honesty as to whether it is of the proper maturity, but he is 
often mislead by their greed and rapacity. It is asserted by 
good authorities that no less than five hundred calves are 
daily shipped to Chicago, and that out of that number a 
large portion are calves only a day or so old. They are 



MEAT. 59 



bought at a low figure and sold at a considerable advance. 
Yeal lias therefore been banished from the tables of those 
who have become cognizant of the practice. 

Tests. — Meat, when fresh, has certain well defined and 
easily recognized characteristics. The muscles of sound 
flesh should be firm, elastic, pale for the young animal, and 
darker colored for the old one, and when cut across a little 
reddish juice should flow out for sometime. The flesh when 
of a deep purple tint is an indication that the animal has not 
been slaughtered, but has died without being bled. Diseased 
meat has a sickly, corpse-like smell. Bad meat is wet and 
flabby, with fat looking like jelly. The fat should be firm 
and without being marked with blood spots. As meat de- 
cays, the fibres become paler or even turn greenish. In 
boiling or roasting, bad meat looses in quality and becomes 
hard. If a clean knife is pushed up to the hilt, the resistance 
will be uniform* in good meat, while in putrefying meat 
some parts are softer than others. The smell of the knife is 
also a good test. Twenty-four hours after killing, the mar- 
row of the hind legs is of a light rosy red color and moderate- 
ly firm, if the animal has been a healthy one, but if it is soft, 
brownish or exhibits black points the animal has been sick 
or putrefaction has set in. 

Still further, good meat has the following characteristics : 
"Beef should be of a bright red color, well streaked with 
yellow fat, and surrounded with a thick outside layer of fat. 
Yeal and pork should be of a bright flesh color, with an 
abundance of hard, white, semi-transparent fat. Lamb of 
the best kind has delicate rosy meat, and white, almost trans- 
parent fat. Fresh poultry may be known by its full, bright 
eyes, pliable feet and moist skin ; the best is plump, fat and 
nearly white. The feet and neck of a chicken suitable for 
broiling are large in proportion to its size ; the tip of the 
breast-bone is soft and easily bent between the fingers. 
Fish when fresh, have firm flesh, bright clear eyes, rigid fins 
and ruddy gills. Lobsters and crabs must be bright in color 
and lively in movement." 



MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 

VARIETY IS THE SPICE OP LIFE. 

Mustard. — The common adulterations of mustard are with 
wheat flour or meal and colored with turmeric and some- 
times with chrome yellow. Other adulterations practiced 
are those with cayenne pepper, ginger, charlock, ground 
rice, silicate of alumina or clay and chromate of lead. The 
pepper is used to give pungency to the mustard and the clay 
or other mineral substances for bulk and weight. Chrome 
yellow and lead are dangerous admixtures. The microscope 
is the best test for flour or meal. For ascertaining lead or 
chrome yellow, take a sample of the mustard to a drug store 
and have added to the watery mixture of the suspected 
article, dilute muriatic acid until it shows a clear reaction 
on litmus paper, then drop in a few grains of sulphuret of 
potassium, which will give the mixture a reddish brown tint 
if lead is present and leave it unchanged if it is free. A still 
more positive test is to pass suiphureted hydrogen through 
the mixture. For evidence of turmeric coloring, use a solu- 
tion of borax, which gives a dark brown color with turmeric. 
Turmeric is for concealing the harmless adulteration with 
flour or meal, which reduces the strength and cheapens the 
goods with no damage except to the consumer's purse. 

Farinaceous Foods.— Nearly all are simple compounds. 
In some cases, wheat flour, slightly baked, sweetened with 
sugar, together with potato starch, Indian corn meal and 
tapioca are used ; in other cases, simply gluten of wheat' 
with a proportion of wheat starch ; in still others, nothing 
but potato flour, artificially colored and, lastly, wheat flour, 
tartaric acid and carbonate of soda. These articles make 
up the foods with high sounding titles and in flaming colored 
labels. 

Sago. — This substance is obtained from the pith of the 
stems of several kinds of palm, which grow on the islands of 



MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES 61 

the Indian Archipelago, in Madagascar, New Guinea, China 
and Japan by a peculiar process. The leading adulteration 
of sago flour and of granulated sago is with potato starch. 
Frequently the false sago prepared from potato starch is 
substituted for true sago. The microscope can alone detect 
the adulterations. 

Tapioca. — This root is cultivated in South America, from 
which after due process, Cassava meal or bread is made and 
a juice extracted that after a time deposits a farina or starch, 
which is called tapioca meal. This meal being dried con- 
stitutes granular tapioca. The adulterations of tapioca are 
with mixtures of other starches as those of sago and potato. 
With the microscope their detection is easy and certain. 

Allspice. — This article is the berry or fruit of a tree, which 
grows in the West Indies and in Jamaica. Its chief adulte- 
rations are with mustard husk, bread-crust, beans, corn- 
starch, woody tissues and turmeric, and can be detected with 
the microscope. 

Mixed Spice. — This is a mixture in different proportions 
of several spices, as ground ginger, allspice or pimento with 
cassia or cinnamon and a small quantity of powdered cloves. 
Wheat flour, ground rice, sago and potato flour are used 
chiefly for adulterations. 

Anchovies. — Several kinds of fish are substituted for or 
mixed with the genuine Gorgona anchovy. The chief of 
these are Dutch, French, Sicilian fish and sardines and 
sprats. Besides, the brine, in which the fish are preserved, 
is higniy colored with bole Armenian and Venetian red. An 
expert who is familiar with the flesh of the different fishes 
can only detect the adulterations. 

Cayenne Pepper. —Cayenne pepper is subjected to very 
general adulterations. Red lead, sulphuret of mercury, 
ground rice, turmeric, red earths, husk of white mustard 
seed are used for this purpose. The use of red lead and 
and other red coloring matter is to conceal other adulterations 
and to preserve the color of the Cayenne. Salt is employed 
to give weight. To detect foreign substances use the micro- 
scope. 



62 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 



Nutmegs.— Nutmegs a:e sometimes mixed with riddled 
nuts, eaten by insects, the small apertures are then closed 
with a kind of cement formed of flour, oil and some powder 
of nutmegs. These may be discovered by soaking them in 
water. Also prick them with a pin. If they are good, the 
oil will instantly spread around the puncture. 

Powdered Cloves and Cinnamon are also adulterated. 
The microscope will reveal the ingredients. 

Ginger. — To improve the color of ginger, it is frequently 
rubbed over with lime, and in some cases, washed in chalk 
and water. The adulterations are with sago meal, tapioca, 
potato flour, wheat flour, ground rice, cayenne pepper, 
mustard husks and turmeric powder. The microscope will 
reveal the foreign substances. 

Pepper. — The adulterations of pepper are made with lin- 
seed meal, mustard husk, wheat flour, pea flour, sago, rice 
flour and pepper dust. To which may be added wheat bran, 
sulp'hate of lime and rape seed, etc. "Out of four samples 
examined," says the report of the congressional committee, 
"taken from respectable houses in the City of New York, 
only one was found pure. The others contained baked flour 
and rye, with sand enough to prove the unclean condition of 
the peppers when milled. Dr. Hassel in 1855 reported forty- 
three specimens taken from English stores, sixteen of which 
were adulterated. The chemist of the National Board of 
Health gave the results of a larger experience. Of 1,116 
peppers, 576 were adulterated with rice, sago, potato starch, 
brown and white mustard, wood, wheat bran and flour, oat 
flour, and ground gypsum. The Commissary-General sup- 
plid sixteen unopened sample cans for investigation. Of 
these two were adulterated with fresh flour, while six showed, 
from the quantity of sand present, the unclean and probably 
inferior quality of the peppers. Of thirty-two samples which 
were purchased four were pure. The remaining twenty- 
eight samples were mixed with ingredients which weakened 
their strength and impaired their usefulness. 11 The adulte- 
rations can be discovered by the use of the microscope. 

Liquorice. — The principal adulterations are those with 



MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 63 

sugar and chalk. On boiling, the sugar and chalk will be- 
come assimilated with the water, and liquorice settle at the 
bottom. 

Annatto. — This article, which is used foi coloring, is 
itself subject to adulteration. It is mixed with sulphate of 
lime, carbonate of lime, salt, alkali, red lead and copper and 
ferruginous earths. 

Curry Powders. — The genuine powder is composed of 
turmeric, black pepper, corriander seeds, cayenne, fenu- 
greek, cardamons, cumin, ginger, allspice and cloves. Of 
these turmeric forms the largest proportions. Its adultera- 
tions are with ground rice, potato starch, salt and red lead. 

Sauces, Potted Meats and Fish, — These are colored 
with red ferruginous earths, as bole Armenian and Venetian 
red. 

Syrup. — This is largely adulterated with cheap glucose. 
The manufacturers of glucose buy large quantities of sugar 
syrup and in consequence of it, the price of the pure article 
advanced, within three months, 15 to 18 cents. 

Soda Syrups. — The syrups used with the soda drawn from 
fountains are abominations of the worst kind. Raspberry, 
strawberry, pine- apple, lemon, etc., are no more related to 
the substances from which they derive their names than 
opium is related to food. They are made up from various 
chemicals to give them a flavor of the genuine article, and 
those who use these "extracts" regularly find to their regret 
that the stomach determines their quality better than the 
palate. They are poisonous in their character and should 
be used very sparingly if at all. Good drug firms furnish 
the best quality 

Maple Sugar is adulterated with muscovado and brown 
sugars. In some cases, only sufficient maple is retained to 
impart a flavor to the mixed article. 

Grain. — In order to raise the grade and improve the 
quality of poor or damaged wheat, barley and other grains, 
they are subjected to fumigation by sulphur and placed upon 
the market as sound and in their natural condition. 

Rum is a spirit obtained from fermented skimmings of the 



64 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 

juice of sugar-cane mixed with molasses and lees and diluted 
with water. It is adulterated with cayenne or coculus 
indicus to give it strength, sugar and burnt sugar to restore 
sweetness and color. As it has a tendency to create pres- 
piration, it is used frequently by persons to break up a cold. 

Gin is made from unmalted rye and barley malt, rectified 
with juniper berries. It is also made from malt and barley, 
molasses and corn flavored with juniper berries and some- 
times improved with corriander, cardamon and caraway seeds, 
grains of paradise, almond cake and orange peel. It is 
adulterated with alum, carbonate of potash, acetate of lead, 
sulphuric acid, and sulphate of zinc. 

Rancidity of Fats. — A test for rancidity of fats is to mix 
with them iodide of potassium, which, if in the least affected, 
quickly assume an orange color, the tint being directly 
proportionate to the amount of rancidity. 



INJURIOUS SUBSTANCES. 



THE POISONOUS STUFF THAT ONE SWALLOWS. 



The following substances are 

injurious by Dr. A. H. Hassell, 

Coculus indicus, very poison- 
ous. 

Arsenite of copper, emerald 
green or Scheel's green. 

Sulphate of copper, or blue 
vitriol, and acetate of 
copper or verdigris. 

Carbonate of copper or ver- 
diter. 

The three chromates of lead. 

Red oxide of lead. 

Red ferruginous earths, as 
Venetian red, bole Ar- 
menian, red and yellow 
ochres, umber, etc. 

Carbonate of lead. 

Plumbago, or black lead. 

Bisulphuret of mercury, or 
cinnabar. 

Sulpnate of iron. 

Cayenne. 

Picric acid, in doses of 1 to 
10 grains many animals 
can be killed. 



pronounced to be very highly 

of England : 

The three false Brunswick 

greens, being mixtures 

of the chromates of lead 

and indigo, or Prussian 

blue. 
Oxychlorides of copper, or 

true Brunswick greens. 
Orpiment, or sulphuret of 

arsenicum. 
Ferrocyanide of iron, or 

Prussian blue. 
Antwerp blue and chalk. 
Indigo. 
Ultramarine. 
Artificial ultramarine. 
Hydrated sulphate of lime, 

mineral white or plaster 

of Paris. 
Alum. 

Sulphuric acid. 
Bronze powders, or alloys of 

copper and zinc. 
Chromates of potash. 
Gamboge. 



COLORS IN CONFECTIONERY. 

PIGMENTS THAT ARE THE PIGMENTS OF SHARPERS. 

List of colors that should be excluded from confectionery 
on the ground that they are very injurious to health : 

Yellow Color. — Gamboge; the three chrome yellows, or 
chromate of lead; massicot, or protoxide of lead; yellow 
orpiment, or sulphuret of arsenicum; King's yellow, or sul- 
phuret of arsenicum with lime and sulphur; iodide of lead; 
sulphuret of antimony; yellow ochre. 

Red Color. — Red lead, minium, or red oxide of lead; 
vermilion, or bisulphuret of mercury; red orpiment, realger, 
or bisulphuret of arsenic; iodide of mercury; red ferruginous 
earths, or Venetian red, etc. 

Brown Color. — Vandyke brown and umber. 

Purple Color. — All purples resulting from the mixture 
of any of the reds or blues given. 

Blue Color. — Prussian blue, or ferrocyanide of iron; 
indigo; Antwerp blue, a preparation of Prussian blue; cobalt; 
smalt, a glass of cobalt; blue verditer, or sesquicarbonate 
of copper; ultramarine, a double silicate of alumina and 
soda, with sulphuret of sodium; German or artificial ultra- 
marine, which resembles in its composition natural ultra- 
marine. 

Green Color. — The three false Brunswick greens, being 
mixtures of lead and indigo; mineral green, green verditer 
or subcarbonate of copper: verdigris, or diocetate of copper; 
Emerald green, or arsenite of copper; the true Brunswick 
greens, or -oxychlorides of copper; false verditer, or sul- 
phuret of copper and chalk. 

Various Bronze Powders. — Gold, silver and copper 
bronzes; these consist of alloys, in different proportions of 
copper and zinc, white lead or carbonate of lead. 

The use of the above colors in candies, etc., is rigidly pro- 
hibited by the Department of Health in France. Since the 



COLORS OF CONFECTIONERY. 67 

list was put in force, a number of colors are now prepared 
from coal tar, every tint being imitated. If these dyes, in- 
cluding aniline dyes, were pure, their use, it is stated, would 
be comparatively harmless, but being frequently contaminated 
with arsenic, they ought to be condemned. How extensive- 
ly arsenic is used is indicated by "Food and Health," of New 
York, which says: "We import annually 2,000,000 pounds 
of this deadly poison — one cent's worth of which would kill 
2,800 people — and the bulk of this import is used in the 
preparation of food and clothing.' 1 



THE PURPOSES SOME ARTICLES SERVE. 

BULK, WEIGHT, COLOR, TASTE, SMELL, etc. 

The following is a list of substances used for different 
purposes of adulteration as set forth: 

FOR BULK AND WEIGHT. 



Acorns, 


Barley, 


Beach, leaves of, 


Arrowroot, 


Beans, 


Bonedust, 


Apples, 


Beetroot, 


Biscuit, roasted, 


Almonds, milk of, 


Brains, sheep's and calves 1 . 


Corn, Indian, 


Chiccory, 


Clave-stalks, 


Curd, 


Carrots, 


powdered, 


Cassia, 


Chalk, 


Chestnut, horse, 


Charlock, 


Cider, 


Clay, different 


Cake, ground oil, 


Dextrin, 


varieties, 


Earths, red ferru- 


Elm, leaves of, 


Flours, roasted wheat 


ginous, 


Fats, animal, 


& rye, potato, rice, 


Gelatine, 


Glucose, 


peas, etc., 


Gum, 


Ginger, 


Grounds, coffee, 


Hawthorn, leaves 


Iron, magnetic 


Lead, red, 


of, 


oxide of, 


Linseed meal, 


Lime, hydrated sul- 


Leaves, various 


Lie-tea, 


phate of, 


kinds, 


Lime, carbonates of, 


Liver, baked, 


Lard, 


Lime, sulphate of, 


Mangel-wurzel, 


Mustard husks, 


Maize, 


Magnesia, 


Marble, powdered, Oak, leaves of, 


Oat-meal, 


Potatoes, 


Pepper dust, 


Plane, leaves of, 


Pea-flour, 


Plaster of Paris, 


Parsnip, 


Pipe-clay, 


Rye, 


Rice, 


Salt, 


Sago, 


Starch, 


Sawdust, 


Sugar, 


Suet, mutton, 


Seeds, mustard, 


Sand, 


Seeds, radish, 


Sloe, leaves of, 


Soda, 


Turmeric, 


Tapioca, 


Treacle, 


Turnip, pulp of, 


Tea, exhausted 


Tan, oak-bark, 



THE PURPOSES SOME ARTICLES SERVE. 



69 



Tallow, 


leaves of, 


Wheat, 


Water, 


Woody-fibre, 


Willow, leaves of, 


White Potter's Clay. 






FOR COLOR. 




Annatto, 


Antwerpblue, 


Aniline dyes, 


Alkali, 


Alum, 


Black cherries, 


Brazil-wood, 


Bole Armenian, 


Black lead, 


Cochineal, 


Carbonate of cop- 


Copper, salts of, 


Chinese yellow, 


per, 


Chrome yellow, 


Cherries, 


China clay, 


Chalk, 


Cobalt, 


Potash, 


Earths, red ferru- 


Gamboge, 


Green, Emerald, 


ginous, 


Greens, the three 


Indian red, 


Indigo, 


Brunswick, 


Lake, 


Lead, carbonate of. 


Lead, red and black 


, Lead, chromateof 


, Liquorice, 


Litmus, 


Liver, baked, 


Logwood, decoction 


Lime, sulphate of, 


Mica, 


of, 


Mallow flowers, 


Mercury, bisul- 


Madder root, 


Naples yellow, 


phuret of, 


Orange, 


Ochre, red, 


Plumbago, 


Prussian blue, 


Red, Indian, 


Red, Venetian, 


Rose Pink, 


Dutch Pink, 


Salt, 


Sienna, 


Sugar, burnt, 


Soap-stone, 


Smalt, 


Turmeric, 


Treacle, 


Ultramarine, arti* 


Umber, 


Vermilion, 


ficial, 


Vandyke brown, 


Vegetable red, 


White lead, 


Yellow dyes, 


Yellow ochre. 




FOR TASTE, 


SMELL AND OTHER PROPERTIES. 


Alum, 


Artificial essences 


, Acetate of amyl, 


Angelica root, 


Almond cake, 


Arsenic, 


Acetic acid, 


Burnt sugar, 


Butyrate of amyl, 


Cassia, 


Cayenne, 


Copper, sulphate of, 


Cardamon seeds, 


Caustic lime, 


Cinnamon, 


Catechu, 


Camomile, 


Carbonates of soda 


Coculus indicus, 


Cornander seeds, 


and potash, 


Cream of tartar, 


Earths, red ferru- 


Emerald green, 


Grains of Paradise, 


ginous, 


Ginger, 


Gin flavorings, 


Gentian, 


Grey salts, 



70 



THE PURPOSES SOME ARTICLES SERVE. 



Gum, 

Iron, sulphate of, 
Lead, acetate of, 
Orange peel, 
Oyster shells, 
Oil of turpentine, 
Picric acid, 
Quassia, 



Sulphuric acid, 

Treacle, 

Wormwood. 



Honey, 

Lime, caustic, 
Long pepper, 
Oil of almonds, 
Orange powder, 
Opium, 
Potash, carbonate 

of, 
Sugar, 

Sulphate of potash, 
Tartaric acid. 



Hydrochloric acid, 
Liquorice, 
Mustard seed, 
Orris root, 
Oak sawdust, 
Powder, Chinese Bo- 
tanical, 
Salt, 

Soda, carbonate of, 
Salt of tartar, 
White salts, 



THE LEGAL AND MORAL ASPECTS OF THE CASE. 

WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE TO SUPPRESS ADULTERATIONS. 

In the foregoing pages, we have set forth the adulterations 
of the leading articles of diet and stimulants. They form, 
however, only a small portion of the deceptions practiced in 
business. Were the whole field covered, the exposition of 
the frauds would fill a good sized volume and prove appal- 
ling by their extent and enormity. 

In the drug line alone, the adulterations of goods are 
practiced almost beyond the bounds of belief, and put to 
blush the manipulators of food by their superlative fineness. 
Drugs are designed to improve and strengthen the vital 
forces, and their manufacture and compounding should 
therefore be of the best and purest character. Here at least 
there ought to be no trifling with the human system. But 
such is not the case. In the balance, the greed for gain 
overbalances the side of humanity. Health is sacrificed for 
wealth. 

A wholesale drug firm in Chicago has shown, in a private 
work of their own for circulation among their customers, a 
list of some adulterations, but this list is meager and incom- 
plete and seems to be merely supplementary to a pharma- 
ceutical book, which was published some three years ago and 
which gave chemical formulae for detecting adulterations in 
drugs. In spite of this exposure, dealers in the wholesale 
line seem to have not only continued their practices, but en- 
larged upon the number of articles susceptible to sophistica- 
tion. How extensively has grown this practice may be 
judged by the following, taken from a circular issued recently 
by a firm of manufacturing chemists of Peoria: "We have 
assumed that the jobbing trade are, as a rule, handling and 
selling adulterated powdered drugs. Of this we have the 
most abundant evidence, having carefully examined many 
samples obtained from jobbers, with the object of finding out 



72 LEGAL AND MORAL ASPECTS. 

exactly what kind of goods we were obliged to compete with, 
and we regret to say, that we have yet to find a pure sample 
of bulk goods. We do not say all the goods offered are 
adulterated, but that all we have examined are." 

Deception, however, is not alone confined to foods and 
drugs, but extends to perfumery, the manufacture of clothing 
and other industries. In machinery, manufacturers recon- 
struct machines and boilers from pieces taken out of old ones 
and palm them off as new, and, in fabrics, shoddy material 
is used to make up what appears to be good, durable goods. 
In perfumery, very few scents are made directly from the 
flowers, the names of which they bear, but from beef fat, 
lard, etc., exposed to fresh flowers in close boxes until 
thoroughly charged with their odors, from which fifty or 
more combinations of the odors of other flowers are made. 
Perfumes of other kinds are made from essential oils and not 
from what they are supposed to be manufactured. Standard 
fertilizers, such as guanos, superphosphates, etc., are also 
adulterated. Their sales aggregate millions of dollars 
annually, and, because of the large quantities purchased, the 
tillers of the soil are Unconsciously deceived. 

"Is there no remedy for this wholesale and almost univer- 
sal deception ?" will be asked. In some classes of articles 
there is, but in a majority of cases there is not the slightest 
protection at law. In England, the consumers are measurably 
protected by "The Sale of Food and Drugs Act," adopted in 
1860 and amended by parliament in 1875, and under its pro- 
visions aggrieved parties can not only secure redress, but in- 
volve the adulterating tradesmen in severe penalties. In 
France, the law prosecutes as an adulteration all chemical 
coloring of wines and prescribes certain articles that must 
not be "handled.'" In Germany also, adulteration of some 
articles is made a punishable offense. 

In the United States, there is no national law touching 
adulterations. Congress recently investigated the question, 
but so far it has taken no action except to receive a report of 
its committee. Several states and some cities have taken the 
matter in hand, but the laws adopted have only had reference 



LEGAL AND MORAL ASPECTS. 73 

to some special article or articles. In Michigan, the legisla- 
ture passed a law against the adulteration of honey and some 
other articles, but failed to cover the whole field. In Chicago, 
the city council adopted an ordinance looking to the suppres- 
sion of spurious butter, but failed to cover other branches. In 
New York, a bill to prohibit the coloring of oleomargarine 
to give it the appearance of butter was defeated this year by 
the legislature in the interest of the manufacturers, but no 
other kindred adulterations were presented for action. 

Among all the states of the union, Illinois, however, is an 
exception. It has almost complete legislation on adultera- 
tions. It has covered food, drink and medicine, and pre- 
sented very comprehensive and forcible acts touching their 
sophistication. But after all, these acts are deficient in one 
particular. They do not provide for a central, active and 
responsible authority. In the case of the drug act, its chief 
defect is that instead of entrusting the duty of ferreting out and 
prosecuting violations to some regular paid expert or experts, 
it leaves the whole matter to a board of pharmacy, which 
receives no compensation from the state and which is virtually 
responsible only to itself. As to the food and drink act, it 
leaves the states attorney of each county to prosecute viola- 
tors on complaint, and, as their time is given to other matters 
exclusively, complaints, if ever sent in, receive very slight 
attention at their hands. In view of the widespread preva- 
lence of adulteration, the acts have so far, since their passage 
in 1881, remained dead letters upon the statute book. We 
have failed to note a single prosecution under them. All no 
doubt due to the defect we have pointed out; 

The firm above referred to, however, seem determined to 
comply with the law's requirements. In the circular, they 
say rather ironically: "We have never sold adulterated or 
inferior goods, and under our state law we dare not, neither 
can we compete with those who do. We do not propose to 
take any precipitate action or involve any of our jobbing 
friends in trouble. We propose to wait patiently and give 
them plenty of time to replace their present stocks with pure 
goods. We do not ask you to buy from us, nor do we con- 



74 LEGAL AND MORAL ASPECTS. 

template increasing our business in this direction, but we will 
naturally compel our competitors to ask more for goods, 
thereby enabling us to realize equal prices for our own." 

The prospect of the passage of a law covering all adultera- 
tions by the general government is more remote than im- 
mediate. Every state should therefore look to the interests 
of its own people, and adopt needed measures to check the 
present general tendency to commercial deceptions. The 
law should be sweeping in its scope and penalties. It should 
take in all classes of articles, like the law of Illinois. It 
should see that rigorous prosecutions are inflicted upon all 
violators. It should for repeated offenses, impose burden- 
some penalties and thus force all to abandon their nefarious 
practices. To effect all this, it should create a board of 
chemists, under the pay and control of the state, to analyze 
sample goods from various parts of the state, and then where 
they find adulterations, leave the courts to pass judgment. 
With such a provision, the acts of Illinois would be - all that 
could be desired, and offendors would find it exceedingly 
uncomfortable and unprofitable to ply their business. 

Whether viewed from a legal, moral or commercial stand- 
point, there can be no question as to the baseness of the 
practice of imposing upon the public. Dr. Hassall has well 
expressed it when he says: "It is impossible for a man to be 
guilty of adulteration and yet be an honest man. Can it 
even be said of the adulterator, be he a manufacturer or a 
roaster and grinder of chiccory and coffee, or be he a retail 
tradesman, who sophisticates the goods which he sells and 
mixes them with roasted corn or beans, Venetian red, etc., 
that he is guilty of a less offense than the common thief? 
The last takes but our property, while the former not only 
robs us of our substance, but sometimes our health as well." 
** "Taking into consideration, therefore, all the circum- 
stances of the case, we believe it to be almost impossible to 
over-estimate the importance of the subject of adulteration, 
viewed either as a question of public, of pecuniary loss to the 
consumer and the revenue or as one of morality. To sum 
up, it is not too much to say that the question of adultera- 



LEGAL AND MORAL ASPECTS. 75 



tion is one which affects the health of thousands, and even 
the lives of many; that hundreds of thousands of pounds 
(£'s) are annually lost to the consumer by the practice of 
adulteration; and tnat by its prevalence the moral status of 
the commercial portion of the community is lowered in the 
eyes of the world.' 1 

From what has already been shown in this work, it will be 
apparent that the United States has outstripped all other 
countries in the extent and variety of the adulterations it has 
countenanced by a lack of legal restrictions. England in 
her palmy days, when her merchants were unrestricted, never 
approached the present practices of some of the merchants 
of our country. So strongly are the manipulators of our 
foods banded together that they resist with what influence 
they can command in a state all efforts to destroy their per- 
nicious business. They are up in. protest the moment any 
one suggests a law. As the New York American Machinist, 
speaking in a recent issue about commercial dishonesty 
has well expressed it: "As soon as a measure of this kind is 
introduced an outcry is sure to be raised against interfering 
with the rights of trade, as if systematic deception were a 
vested right which legislatures were bound to protect. 
While there is nothing on its face derogatory to commercial 
honesty in making and selling glucose, oleomargarine, clari- 
fied syrup, and newly set-up machinery and boilers composed 
in part of old and worn machines and boilers, there is neither 
honesty nor should there be cover of law for selling glucose 
for common "store sugar, 11 oleomargarine for butter, sugar 
syrup for honey, or reconstructed machinery and boilers for 
new. Deliberately planned deception should be treated with 
something more than public contempt, which is no punish- 
ment for the kind of individuals who are capable of regularly 
practicing commercial humbuggery. If there is no law to 
prevent such deception there ought to be such a force of 
public indignation brought to bear upon the perpetrators of 
these tricks, that would effectually drive them either out of 
business or into strictly honest commercial transactions." 

Their chief argument is that in presenting their mixed 



76 LEGAL AND MORAL ASPECTS. 

substances they keep down the prices of the genuine and 
thereby benefit poor people. Those who turn out butterine 
or oleomargarine assert that had there been no such articles 
in the market, during the winter of 1881 and 1882, the price 
of butter would have been as high as seventy-five cents per 
pound, and those who turn out other mixtures defend their 
practices on the ground that without them many households 
would be deprived of many indispensible articles. This sort 
of defense is all very fine so far as it goes, but it wholly 
ignores the deception at the bottom of their transactions. 
They claim that their business is all open and above board, but 
it is a curious commentary upon their statements that when- 
ever there is any likelihood of legislation to compel them to 
brand their packages so as to indicate their true nature, they 
at once seek by ambidextrous methods to defeat it. If frauds 
have been perpetrated, it is always outside speculators and 
not they who are guilty. If such is the case, then why not 
let the public be protected against imposition? If they are 
doing the public a service, why not let the public know ex- 
actly what that service is, and not keep them in ignorance of 
the benefactions bestowed upon them by men, who would 
have it appear that they are wholly disinterested and have 
only the welfare (?) of the poor at heart? When people buy 
their wares, under existing conditions, they suppose they are 
purchasing the genuine. Why not then allow them to be en- 
lightened as to the true state of affairs and thus enable the 
poor to rise up and call them blessed and possibly prompt 
them to erect monuments to their memory on their demise. 

The secret of the whole matter is that, if they supinely 
allowed the passage of a law to compel them to tell the truth, 
a falling market, small sales, and comparatively small 
profits would tend to break up their business. The mass of 
well-to-do people would let their spurious articles alone and 
poor people would purchase only in case of necessity. At 
any rate there would be a great falling off in their sales, in 
their business and in their dividends. 

In short, deception is the basis of their success and poor 
goods their stock in trade, and the sooner they are forced to 
honest methods, the better for the health and purses of the 
people and for the integrity of the commercial world. 



CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 

ON THE USE OF THE MICROSCOPE. 

The microscope is used by chemists and .the various pro- 
fessions to detect adulterations. It is finely suited for the de- 
tection of all organized structures and substances, animal or 
vegetable, while chemistry is adapted for discovering the 
presence of various chemical substances and salts. Of course 
to use it intelligently, one must understand the general 
character and structure of the substances to be examined, 
and then any of them are easily designated. 

For instance, suppose we have a sample of powdered cof- 
fee and chiccory. If we are familiar with their structures, 
we can at once classify them while inspected under the 
microscope. However, a knowledge of the organizations of 
all substances is not necessary. If we have under the micro- 
scope a sample bought as coffee at the store and we find that 
some particles differ from others in general structure, it can 
be set down as absolutely correct that adulteration with 
either chiccory or some other article has been resorted to. 
No matter to how fine a powder the particles may have been 
reduced, detection is simple and easy. In the case of tea 
leaves, the genuine leaf will preserve the general outlines — 
no matter how small the particles — of its structure or cellular 
tissues, and the presence of foreign leaves can be easily 
noted. So also the general structure and appearance of 
wheat flour, sago powder, potato starch, rice, mustard, etc., 
will reveal their respective differences and enable the ob- 
server to note them easily. Likewise in the case of sugar 
and glucose, the former presents perfect and brilliant crystals 
while the latter is crystalline in character under examination. 

A little practice with different articles will soon make one 
an expert. A serviceable microscope can be purchased at 
from $1 and upwards. Every family should possess one and 
thereby be enabled to examine not only the ingredients of 
what they consume, liquids as well as solids, but "many other 
articles of use. 



INDEX. 



Page. 

Allspice 61 

Anchovies 61 

Annatto 63 

Baking Powders 51 

Beer 30 

' ' ginger 49 

Brandy 43 

Bread 50 

Butter 20 

Cayenne pepper 61 

Cider 53 

Cheese * 24 

Chiccory 54 

Chocolate 56 

Cinnamon, powdered 62 

Cloves, powdered. ....... 62 

Coffee 12 

Confectionery 27 

' ' colors in 66 

Concluding observations, . 77 

Cream of Tartar 52 

Curry Powders 63 

Fats, rancidity of 64 

Farrinaceous Foods 60 

Fish 63 

Flour 55 

Ginger 62 

Gin 64 

Glucose 45 

Grain 63 

Honey 15 

Introductory 3 

Injurious substances 65 

Lard 33 

Legal and Moral Aspects 

of the Question 71 

Liquorice 62 



Page. 

Maple sugar 63 

Meat 58 

" potted 63 

Milk 18 

Microscope, on its use. . 77 

Mineral water 49 

Mixed spice 61 

Mustard 60 

Nutmegs 62 

Pepper 62 

" cayenne 61 

Pickles 57 

Powdered cloves and cin- 
namon . , 62 

Powders, curry 63 

' ' baking 51 

Potted meats 63 

Purposes some articles 

serve 68 

Rum. 63 

Rancidity of fats 64 

Sago 60 

Sauces 63 

Soda water 49 

" syrup '. 63 

Spice, mixed 61 

Sugar, — see also glucose. 5 

' ' maple 63 

Syrup 63 

" soda 63 

Tartar, cream of 52 

Tapioca 61 

Tea 8 

Tobacco. . . 47 

Vinegar 35 

Whiskey 37 

Wines .'.39 



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